“The best of the new works was American Icons by Anne LeBaron. If there is an “it” composer in Southern California right now, she’d hold the title, so it is more than a little surprising that this was the first time any of her compositions had been performed by the LA Phil. Better late than never. This is a clever work, drawing sounds and rhythms that are clearly evocative of a variety of American musical genres without sounding like an over-intellectual parody. The contrasting sounds blend and crash into each other in complex yet entertaining ways. It is a compact tour de force.”
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A four-minute musical firecracker of hepped-up fragments of '50s pop music bashing heads.
“Anne LeBaron's "American Icons" — a fanfare commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the Kennedy Center in Washington and premiered in 1996 when Slatkin was music director of the National Symphony — is a four-minute musical firecracker of hepped-up fragments of '50s pop music bashing heads. An organ blasts through it, Hammond-like. It's a riot, and as happily far from Beethoven as you could possibly imagine.”
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