LIBBY LARSEN

Born: December 24, 1950, Wilmington, Delaware

American composer.

Libby Larsen is a composer committed to the idea of writing modern music that is accessible to a broad audience. She is also one of a handful of composers in our time who makes her living solely on her compositional work, and although she earned a doctorate in composition, she does not hold a university teaching position. She is one of the most frequently commissioned American composers, and is in great demand as a speaker.

Larsen grew up in Minnesota and received all of her degrees from the University of Minnesota, where she studied with Dominick Argento. She cofounded the Minnesota Composers Forum and has been resident composer with various organizations, including the Minnesota Orchestra (1983–87).

The music that Larsen creates often has titles that suggest extramusical associations, but her desire is not to create true program music so much as to evoke an ambiance that the listener can share. As she puts it: "I want to give the listener not the sound of the bird so much as the feeling of flying, not the footsteps on the mountain so much as the sense of climbing." Her music also pays tribute to the past, whether by evoking great figures of the past (musical and otherwise—and women as often as men) or reworking the music of the past. This last can be seen in her Symphony: Water Music, written for the 300th anniversary of the birth of George Frederic Handel. Here, familiar themes by Handel are put into modern settings and transformed to reflect Larsen's own distinctly lyrical sensibilities.

Larsen is also interested in the use of electronic sounds, and many of her works use a mix of electrical and acoustic instruments and juxtapose free and fluid ideas of time and meter against more traditional and rigid ones.

Works:

• Orchestral music, including Symphony: Water Music (1985), What the Monsters Saw (1987), Ghosts of the Old Ceremonies (1991, with dancers), and Song-Dances to the Light (1995)
  
• Chamber music, including Ulloa's Ring (1980, flute and piano) and Aubade (1982, solo flute)
  
• 10 operas, including Beauty and the Beast (1989) Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus (1990), and Eric Hermannson's Soul (1996)
  
• Choral music, including the oratorio Coming Forth into Day (1986), Missa Gaia: Mass for the Earth (1991–92), Seven Ghosts (1995, with brass choir), and Billy the Kid (1997, with large chorus and The King's Singers)
  
• Vocal music, including Three Rilke Songs (1977, for soprano, harp, flute, guitar); song cycles, including Sonnets from the Portuguese (1989, soprano and chamber orchestra on poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning), and Songs from Letters (1989, after Calamity Jane)
  

Links:

• An Interview with Libby Larsen
  http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/larsen/index.html
  An excellent interview with the composer presented by the American Music Center. This wide-ranging interview touches on a number of subjects, including an interesting discussion of the place of women in the contemporary scene. Many links to related sites are included.