Anne LeBaron

Title: Solar Music
Commission: 1990
Completed: 1997
Instrumentation: flute, double bass, alto, piccolo, and harp
Premiere Location: Internationales Solistinnenkonzer, Berlin
Premiere Ensemble: Kammermuskisaal Philharmonie Berlin
Notes:

A West Coast experimentalist who is an innovative performer on the harp as well as a composer embracing unusual challenges, Anne LeBaron’s compositions have been performed around the globe. Venues in Italy, Mexico, Sydney, Vienna, Sweden, Kazakhstan, New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere have programmed her works for chamber groups, opera, cantatas, and presented her as a performer. Her operas celebrate legendary figures such as Pope Joan, Eurydice, Marie Laveau, the American Housewife, and Aldous Huxley. Her current opera-in-progress, LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip, was awarded one of the first Discovery Grants from Opera America. The orchestra includes instruments built by American composer and inventor Harry Partch. Excerpts have been performed at three LA venues: at the Wallis Annenberg Theater in Beverly Hills, at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, and at the REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles.

As a member of the School of Music faculty at CalArts, she has developed highly original courses blending music with theater, art history, literature, and other culturally and politically resonant topics, while encouraging students to actively create work incorporating ideas emerging from these classes. A representative sample of the classes would include HyperOpera; Concert Theater; Musical Reflections of Surrealism; Music of Harry Partch; Writing for Everything Else; and Contemplative Practices, Musical Arts, Compassionate Mind.