Composition, Theory, History, and Literature

Widely recognized for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms, Anne LeBaron’s compositions have been described in the Washington Post as possessing “uncommon imagination and technical skill.” Embracing an extraordinary array of subjects, ranging from contemporary adaptations of Greek and South American myths, to probes into physical and cultural forms of extinction, to the legendary Pope Joan, her works have earned numerous awards and prizes. As a Fulbright Scholar to Germany in 1980 - 81, LeBaron studied with György Ligeti, later completing her doctorate in composition at Columbia University. Her compositions have been written for virtually every contemporary genre and performed and broadcast throughout the world. Awards and prizes include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Fromm Foundation Commission, a three-year residency in Washington D.C. sponsored by Meet the Composer, and the CalArts / Alpert Award in the Arts, along with fellowships from the D.C Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts, and the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, and two Bellagio Center residencies. In 2006, she was awarded the Djerassi Resident Artists Program Honorary Fellowship.
In the fall of 2007, New World Records will release Pope Joan, a recording of the dance opera by the same name, and of a chamber work, Transfiguration. Also in 2007, the New York-based Multi-Arts Production Fund, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, awarded Anne LeBaron and Douglas Kearney a grant for the creation of Sucktion, a one-woman music theater work. Excerpts from her hyperopera, Crescent City, were performed by the New York City Opera in May 2006, and a related suite, Phantasmagoriettas from Crescent City, will be premiered at the Dag in Die Branding Festival in The Hague on Dec. 1, 2007 with the Loos Ensemble.
Additional performances from the past year include Way of Light, a commission from the International Trumpet Guild for solo trumpet, electronics, and video. Solar Music, for flute and harp, was performed in Austria as part of the Tyrolean Festival. Los Murmullos, a work for solo piano commissioned by Ana Cervantes, had its first performance on the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Wet, LeBaron’s opera that confronted the big business of water and the horrors of floods, premiered at REDCAT in Los Angeles on Dec. 1-3, 2005. Critic Mark Swed wrote in the LA Times: “Wet is an ambitious and alarming new opera with strong music by Anne LeBaron. LeBaron's writing for the instrumental ensemble is full of invention. Cultures never collide, but many coexist. Her fluidity with musical style and with musical character is the real wetness of Wet.” The range of LeBaron’s musical language can be heard many recordings, including "Sacred Theory of the Earth" (CRI; now available from New World Records); “The Musical Railism of Anne LeBaron” (Tellus/Mode); “Rana, Ritual, and Revelations” (Mode); and “Phantom Orchestra” (Ear-Rational).
An accomplished harpist, LeBaron is renowned for her pioneering methods of developing extended techniques and electronic enhancements for the harp. Leading innovators of jazz and other forms of improvised music, including Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey, have engaged her in performance and recording collaborations. She appeared on the Total Music Meeting in Berlin, 2003, with the King Ubu Orchestra, and was a featured artist at Berlin’s Akademie der Kunst in 2004. Her latest performances were during the Konfrontation Festival in Nickelsdorf, Austria, in the summer of 2006.
LeBaron currently teaches composition and related subjects at the California Institute of the Arts. She serves on the national board of the American Composers Forum.

Personal websites:

http://www.annelebaron.com

www.wetopera.org


alebaron@calarts.edu

excerpt from TRANSFIGURATION, music by Anne LeBaron

based on the poem by Djuna Barnes (other texts from Dante, Shakespeare, Picasso, Margery of Kempe, and the Book of Ecclesiastes)

Commissioned by the Saarlandischer Rundfunk

premiered on May 29, 2003 in Forbach, France

Lucy Shelton, soprano; Camilla Hoitenga, flute;

Xenia Sellner, harp; Thierry Miroglio, percussion

excerpt from TRACES OF MISSISSIPPI, music by Anne LeBaron

Commissioned by Continental Harmony, a project of the American Composers Forum

Featured in the PBS broadcast program, Continental Harmony

premiered at the Madison County Cultural Center in Madison, MS, fall 2000

Jolivette Anderson, poet for this segment

Score excerpt from WET