Celebrated saxophonist Jan Berry Baker will play a set of Heroines for soprano and alto saxophone, expressly composed for her with a commission from the Davise Fund at UCLA. The concert will take place at Florida Gulf Coast University, with musical portraits of heroines from Anne LeBaron’s large scale project, The Heroine with a Thousand Faces: Leymah Gbowee, Julieta Dobles, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Helen MacKillop, and Susan B. Anthony.

Blue Calls Set You Free is derived from LeBaron’s first opera, The E. & O. Line (1993), with a libretto by Thulani Davis. It will be performed in at the Tula Concert Hall in Tula as part of the Muffled Voices Festival, an extraordinary global venture that seeks to promote and honor the musical contributions made by women. This initiative was brought to life by the nonprofit American organization Lyrica Classic Entertainment under the leadership of its artistic director, Yulia Petrachuk, and the support of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Internationally acclaimed composer and harpist Anne LeBaron marks her illustrious tenure at CalArts with a retrospective concert at UCLA’s Lani Hall, on Wednesday, February 7, at 7 PM. The program, encapsulating four decades of pioneering music, will be followed by an enlightening talkback and reception.

The evening unfolds around LeBaron’s lifelong passions, weaving a tapestry of music with drama, environmental advocacy, sounds and stories from around the world, the recognition of women’s achievements, and the spirit of artistic collaboration. This much-anticipated event will feature world premieres alongside rarely performed works.

“The Heroine with a Thousand Faces,” a prodigious new multi-year endeavor aiming to create one thousand musical portraits, launches with five original solos honoring women whose momentous contributions have reshaped our history. The prestigious Davise Fund facilitates these tributes by commissioning musical homages to figures such as Australian Saint Mary Helen Mackillop, Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee, and the indomitable Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Extraordinary saxophonist Jan Berry Baker will present world premieres of five such portraits, composed expressly for her.

Showcasing an array of LeBaron’s vocal compositions from her operatic oeuvre, the program includes chamber pieces that echo her deep commitment to environmental causes. Additionally, her improvisational prowess on the harp will be on display as she guides an ensemble through a graphic score, drawing inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s concept of ‘the infrathin.’

This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Musicology, the Department of Music, the Center for Musical Humanities, the Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center, and the UCLA Music Library Davies Fund.

Get tickets here!

This event will include a musical performance and remarks by Michael Dessen (composer, trombonist, and chair of the Music Department, jazz program coordinator, and director of the Gassmann Electronic Music Studios at UC Irvine) and Anne LeBaron (composer, harpist, and Professor Emerita at the CalArts School of Music). Immediately following the program, attendees are invited to stay for a reception and exhibit viewing.

A concert of LeBaron’s conceptual music will be hosted by Open Gate Theatre on May 7, 7:00 PM, at the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church, 301 N. Orange Grove, Pasadena. The centerpiece is the world premiere of "Music for Peyote Cactus," composed in 1973. Other works on the program include LeBaron’s ongoing series of "Infrathins," and a new ‘retinal’ piece (aka Duchamp). I’ll be playing prepared and bowed harp with a stellar ensemble of musicians: Vinny Golia (winds), William Salmon (flute and voice), Wells Leng (organ and piano), Miller Wrenn (contrabass), and Alex Cline (percussion). The second part of the evening will feature dancer Roxanne Steinberg.

The new piece 'Cosmic Rose' for horn and harp, commissioned by horn player Rachel Constantino, will have its West Coast Premiere as part of the 2022 Hear Now Music Festival at Arts + Archives, Los Angeles.

The title refers to the image of a rose created by a pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The commission was funded by the Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Program of the International Horn Society and the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at the College of Musical Arts of Bowling Green State University.

The new piece 'Cosmic Rose' for horn and harp, commissioned by horn player Rachel Constantino, will be premiered by Rachel and harpist Shelly Du at Bryan Recital Hall, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, on Saturday 15 October at 2.30pm EDT (11.30am PDT) as part of the Bowling Green New Music Festival.

The title refers to the image of a rose created by a pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The commission was funded by the Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Program of the International Horn Society and the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at the College of Musical Arts of Bowling Green State University.

The world premiere of a new composition, set to Pablo Neruda's iconic poem “I’m Explaining a Few Things,” takes place at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music on Thursday October 13 at 7:30 PM. Prima Voce Emerging Artists features the exceptional young mezzo soprano Tivoli Treloar, accompanied and mentored by Lucy Tucker Yates. With this poem, decrying the Spanish Civil War, Neruda became a pacifist poet and a committed activist. In 2017, British playwright Harold Pinter remarked, “Nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful, visceral description of a bombing of civilians.” Although he was no ‘saint’, the Chilean poet and Nobel laureate was deemed the “greatest poet of the 20th century, in any language,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Tivoli's concert program includes additional works by Poulenc, Korngold, Prokofiev, Gershwin, and Mark Carlson.

Femicide, a music composition for cello with fixed and live audio by Anne LeBaron, will be performed at the Sinfonia Festival in Ensenada, Mexico on Sunday 25 September. Conceived as a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural project, it unfolds in three sections: “Highway of Tears,” “Say Her Name,” and “Daughters of Juarez” and this performance will feature the young Mexican cellist Rocío Díaz di Cossío. Visual media in the form of fixed and animated slides are being created by Los Angeles artist Zoe Josephina Moon.

"Infrathin III," a text piece dedicated to Marjorie Perloff, will be performed on Sunday Sept. 18 in Pasadena at the Neighborhood Unitarian Church, 7:00 PM, with a group of brilliant musicians: Vinny Golia, Miller Wrenn, Wells Leng, and Will Salmon.