Libby Larsen
Composing an American Life
The fullness of a life lived allegro
Libby Larsen has composed award-winning music performed around the world. Her works range from chamber pieces and song cycles to operas to large-scale works for orchestra and chorus. At the same time, she has advocated for living composers and new music since cofounding the American Composers Forum in 1973.
Denise Von Glahns in-depth examination of Larsen merges traditional biography with a daring scholarly foray: an ethnography of one active artist. Drawing on musical analysis, the composers personal archive, and seven years of interviews with Larsen and those in her orbit, Von Glahn illuminates the polyphony of achievements that make up Larsens public and private lives. In considering Larsens musical impact, Von Glahn delves into how elements of the personala 1950s childhood, spiritual seeking, love of nature, and status as an important woman artistinform her work. The result is a portrait of a musical pathfinder who continues to defy expectations and reject labels.
"Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life is a welcome addition to the growing number of biographies about women composers." --NOTES
"Recommended for anyone who wishes to study the fascinating life of Larsen, her compositions, and her presence in American compositional life." --Choral Journal
"Undoubtedly, Von Glahn's scholarship and the insight with which she has framed her research are immensely valuable, and as a first biography of the master composer, her book holds even more significance. Anyone, musical or not, who wants to learn about Libby Larsen should read Von Glahn's well-researched and thorough portrayal of her subject." --Women and Music
Excellently researched, beautifully organized, and entertainingly written. Presents a sensitive, wonderfully collaborative portrait of an exuberant, highly productive, and driven woman who dealt with all the turbulence, social change, and musical vicissitudes of her social and musical worlds.--Ellen Koskoff, author of A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender
A scholarly contribution of great importance. Fills in some of the gaps of a leading female composer of our time. Von Glahns collaboration with Libby Larsen is surely a positive factor in ensuring an unprecedented level of detail.--Kay Kaufman Shelemay, author of Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World
Publication supported by grants from the Dragan Plamenac Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The Florida State University, Office of Research; The Florida State University, College of Music; and the Henry and Edna Binkele Classical Music Fund.
To order online:
//www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/77gyt4ge978 0252041150.html
To order by phone:
(800) 621-2736 (USA/Canada)
(773) 702-7000 (International)
Related Titles

Leta E. Miller and J. Michele Edwards

Katherine K. Preston

Honey Meconi

The Life and Music of Florence B. Price
Rae Linda Brown Edited and with a Foreword by Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

Edited by Gayle Sherwood Magee

Edited by Gillian B. Anderson & Ronald H. Sadoff