Ana Cervantes, the visionary pianist who has long championed my music through commissions and performances, performs Creation de las aves at the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote in Guanajuato, Mexico.
I’m performing with the Present Quartet (Ellen Burr, flutes; Anne LeBaron, harp; Jeff Schwartz, bass; Charles Sharp, sax and clarinets) on the new Soundwaves series, Westside Music Conservatory at 12424 Wilshire in Los Angeles. Concert begins at 7:30 pm; we play the second set starting at 8:40. Suggested donation: $20.
The Present Quartet (Ellen Burr, flutes; Anne LeBaron, harp; Jeff Schwartz, bass; Charles Sharp, reeds) will be joined by Lisa Mezzacappa (bass) and Tim Feeney (percussion) for a collectiive free improvisation concert. First Congregational Church, 241 Cedar Ave., Long Beach, CA.
One-of-a-kind ensemble performing on July 5, 2026: Tara Flandreau (violin), Anne LeBaron (harp), Garth Powell (drums and percussion) and Dwight Trible (voice). The Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church sanctuary, Pasadena CA, 7:00 PM. Second set at 8:00 PM with Alex Cline, Joshua White, and Dwight Trible. $10 general admission; $5 students, seniors, past performers.
Highlights from my opera, “LSD – Huxley’s Last Trip,” will be presented on Saturday, May 17 at 8:00 PM, with video projections of scenes performed in 2015 and 2024. This event is part of a two-day program, “Manifest Mind Conference III: The Decentered Self in Psychedelic States,” sponsored by the New Center for Psychoanalysis. Scott Graff, baritone, and Audrey Babcock, mezzo-soprano, will reprise their roles as Aldous Huxley and Laura Huxley, accompanied by John Schneider on microtonal guitar and Alison Bjorkedal on harp. Free admission; venue address (West LA): 2014 Sawtelle Blvd.
“My Beloved Spectra” honors astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979), the first astrophysicist to determine the composition of stars. Commissioned by Alison Bjorkedal and scored for violin, viola, harp, and electronically altered field recordings of NASA’s space sounds, the premiere will take place on November 16, 2024 at Walt Disney Concert Hall’s Keck Amphitheater, on the LA Phil Noon-to-Midnight festival of new music.
Blue Harp Studies No. 1 and No. 2 will be played on the Association for the Promotion of New Music concert featuring electronic works by composers selected by APNM: Nov. 2, 2024, 7:30 PM at Greenwich House Music School.
The Present Quartet (Jeff Schwartz, bass; Anne LeBaron, harp; Ellen Burr, flutes; Charles Sharp, reeds) performs on the Soundwaves New Music series at the Santa Monica Library, MLK Auditorium, 3:30-4:30.
The Partch Ensemble will be joined by Isaura Quartet and an amazing cast of singers to premiere excerpts from Anne LeBaron's LSD: Huxley's Last Trip on June 14 and 15 at REDCAT in downtown LA. LeBaron has been developing this opera since 2015.
Sucktion (libretto by Douglas Kearney), a monodrama for soprano, vibes, drums, and laptop, follows a woman’s erotic encounter with a vacuum cleaner and her subsequent transformation from abject housewife to self-sufficient cyborg. Join us for a stimulating evening at the Neighborhood Unitarian Church, 301 N. Orange Grove, in Pasadena on May 5 at 7:00 PM – an Open Gate Theater production.
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.
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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.
“The Double Helix Scene” from LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip will be premiered by the Partch Ensemble, performing at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles, on June 4-5. The opera is being scored for chamber ensemble combined with a collection of microtonal instruments built by Harry Partch. In this scene, set at the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, Francis Crick and James Watson celebrate their discovery of DNA, the Secret of Life. Crick reveals that while under the influence of LSD, he visualized the Double Helix for the first time.
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The two scenes to be presented, from my opera, This Lingering Life, have been adapted from the Noh play Aya no Tsuzumi. The teenage Princess appears in her home, located in Palm Springs, Florida. She has heard that the Old Gardener is in love with her. She thinks this is hilarious, and she makes fun of him until suddenly realizing that people would laugh at her if they found out. She resolves to put him in his place. Her trickery will lead to tragedy. The Princess sends a note to the Old Gardener through the Young Gardener.
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Ana’s performance will stream on the Music of the Americas concert series. She commissioned me to compose Los Murmullos for her “Rumores” project, and has recorded and performed it in Mexico, the U.S., South America, and Europe. Whisperings and murmurs emanating from the ghost town of Comala in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo are embedded in this atmospheric composition for solo piano. Los Murmullos is the initial work composed for my multi-year project, "The Well-Read Clavier."
This is Not a Carol was commissioned for a Bandcamp release, “Seasonal Séance: Winter Solstice,” to celebrate the 2020 winter solstice on December 21. I composed and performed it on a Chromelodeon. The title of my composition, This is Not a Carol, (an oblique reference to “This is Not a Pipe,” the famous painting by René Magritte), seems to be fitting for the seasonal festivities surrounding the winter solstice of the pandemic era.
My composition for flute and electronic tape, Sachamama, was performed by Margaret Lancaster, outdoors at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, on December 3 - 5, 2020.
My new two-CD recording of solo and chamber compositions, Unearthly Delights, will soon appear on the Innova label. I consider this collection to be a self-contained musical memoir. Each work embodies a personal story, each came with its own challenge, and each challenge was met with an epiphany that led to a conceptual, stylistic, or technical breakthrough. These compositions represent my interpretations of and responses to literature (Edgar Allan Poe, Juan Rulfo, Gertrude Stein), art (Remedios Varo), nature (frogs), food, friendship, J.S. Bach, and the Oxford English Dictionary. These works were mostly composed during the past decade: Fissure; Los Murmullos; Julie’s Garden of Unearthly Delights; Poem for Doreen; Four; Fore; Is Money Money; Creación de las Aves; A – Zythum; After a Dammit to Hell; and Devil in the Belfry.
Commissioners include organizations and individuals: the: Library of Congress, the Montecito Festival, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Sequitur; Ana Cervantes, Julie Feves, Jay Barksdale, and the Panic Duo.
I’ve recently joined a stellar roster of composers at Composers Edition, based in the UK. The official announcement and launch of my page takes place on September 1. Meanwhile, here’s a sneak preview.
Please tune in July 26 2020 to hear pianist Lorenzo Marasso perform his Invention Project: all of J.S. Bach’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions, plus fifteen newly commissioned works responding to each. My work, Kaleidoscopic Bach, is a centrifugal redo of Bach’s Invention and Sinfonia No. 9. Time: 6pm PST (6pm US West Coast Time, 9pm US East Coast Time, 2am next day UK Time, 3am next day CET). The concert can be viewed at one of these online sites:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=317540
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_QQaYPnHqhu9PcR0U7TPyA?view_as=subscriber
The co-commissioning campaign that Lorenzo set up is still open for donations: https://dots.livemusicproject.org/the-invention-project/?fbclid=IwAR0nLacl22YlpzqDEuwwVm2D-p_lZK9qpjfRLJ1Ho-UyWOhT8WFZJbQX4DU
Thank you for your support of all the artists involved, including Los Angeles composers Jack Van Zandt, Jeffrey Holmes, Daniel Corral, Tom Flaherty, and Vera Ivanova.
Two all-star quartets of Los Angeles improvisers celebrate their new CDs. The Present Quartet (Ellen Burr – flutes, Anne LeBaron – harp, Jeff Schwartz – bass, and Charles Sharp – reeds) have released “Routes, Paths, Courses” on Pfmentum, while cornetist Dan Clucas’ Boojum Quartet (with Vinny Golia – reeds, Steuart Liebig – electric bass, and Alex Cline – drums) have self-published their eponymous debut. These artists’ collective resumes are an encyclopedia of creative music, from Muhal Richard Abrams, Derek Bailey, Bobby Bradford, and Anthony Braxton through Satoko Fujii, Henry Grimes, Julius Hemphill, Peter Kowald, and onwards, with supplements for work in contemporary and traditional classical music, rock, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic music.
2020 John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium - A Festival of New Music featuring international and local guests. Free concerts and events in the UNM Center For The Arts.
With special guests: Camilla Hoitenga, Magdalena Meitzner, Anne LeBaron, Lei Liang, Amy Williams, Chatter, Egbert Hiller, and Blair Hamrick.
I’ll be sharing several upcoming concerts with the Present Quartet for 2020. First up for 2020: participating in the John Donald Robb Composers Symposium, where Wave Dash will give the U.S. premiere of my new piece, Kamma Vipaka.
