Anne LeBaron facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Dr. Anne LeBaron
LeBaron in 2018. Photo by Adel Oberto.
Born	Alice Anne LeBaron (1953-05-30) May 30, 1953 (age 72) Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Alma mater	University of Alabama (BA, music) Stony Brook University (MA, music) Columbia University (Doctorate, music)
Occupation	Composer harpist academic writer
Notable work	Huxley’s Last Trip Crescent City S...tion
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship Fulbright scholarship Alpert Award in the Arts Toulmin Grant from Opera America

Alice Anne LeBaron (born May 30, 1953) is an American composer, harpist, professor, and writer. She is known for her experimental music that mixes many different styles.

LeBaron creates music that often sounds new and surprising. She blends traditional styles with modern ones, using ideas from blues, jazz, and even rock music. Her work often explores big ideas about nature, culture, and life. She also adds humor and storytelling to her music.

She is famous for playing the harp in unique ways. She uses special techniques, like adding objects to the harp strings or bowing them like a cello, to create new sounds.

Her music has been performed at famous places like Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. She has won many important awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright scholarship. She taught music at the California Institute of the Arts for many years.

Early Life and Learning

Anne LeBaron was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She grew up in a musical family. Her father was a bluegrass musician who played the guitar, banjo, and mandolin. Growing up, her home was filled with live music.

As a child, LeBaron taught herself to play the piano. In her teens, she took piano lessons and wrote her own songs on the guitar. She was also a skilled chess player. At age 12, she won a university chess tournament. She said chess taught her how to focus and always look for a better move.

LeBaron went to the University of Alabama to study piano. One day, she found a harp in an empty room and decided to learn how to play it. She earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Alabama. She later earned a master's degree from Stony Brook University and a doctorate from Columbia University.

A Career in Music

LeBaron taught music at the University of Pittsburgh before becoming a professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2001. She taught there until she retired in 2024.

Creating New Music

LeBaron is known for writing music that crosses boundaries. She mixes different styles to create something new. For example, her opera The E & O Line uses elements of blues music. She also gets ideas from literature, like a piece for violin and piano inspired by the writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Some of her music is inspired by other cultures. Her piece Lamentation/Invocation uses sounds from Korean music. Another work, Noh Reflections, is based on music from Japanese Noh theater.

Theater is a big part of LeBaron's work. She created a new type of opera she calls "hyperopera." A hyperopera is a team effort where composers, writers, singers, and designers all work together closely. This is different from traditional opera, where the composer and writer usually have the most control.

Her hyperopera Crescent City is a great example of this. For its first performance, six different visual artists helped design and build the sets. The music was played by musicians who could switch between different styles, just like the singers.

Playing the Harp Differently

As a harpist, LeBaron is an innovator. She is known for using "extended techniques," which means playing an instrument in unconventional ways. She might attach small objects to the harp strings to change their sound or use a bow to play them.

She started developing these new ways of playing in the 1970s. She has performed with many famous creative musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Lionel Hampton, and George E. Lewis.

Awards and Honors

LeBaron has received many awards for her work as a composer.

Major Productions

Here are some of LeBaron's most important musical productions.

Selected Works

For Small Groups (Chamber Music)

• Concerto for Active Frogs (1974)
• Rite of the Black Sun (1980)
• I Am An American...My Government Will Reward You (1988)
• Transfiguration (2003)
• Los Murmullos (The Murmurs) (2006)
• Radiant Depth Unfolded -- Settings of Rumi (2015)

For Orchestra

• Strange Attractors (1987)
• American Icons (1996)
• Traces of Mississippi (2000)

For Choir

• Story of My Angel (1993)
• Silent Steppe Cantata (2011)
• Floodsongs (2012)

Opera

• The E. & O. Line (1993)
• Pope Joan (2000)
• S...tion (2008)
• Crescent City (2012)
• Huxley's Last Trip (2024)