Glass, and Leonard Bemstein, but also, and perhaps more importantly, from her own
observations of the sonic culture around her. The later takes many forms: from the
auctioneer, preacher, or president whose speech patterns she has meticulously transcribed
and incorporated into texted and un-texted compositions, to the images of the natural
world around her. These are evoked in various ways as the subjects of operas, choral
works, song cycles, and Instmmental works that recall the life or writing of both ordinary
and famous Americans.
Throughout her catalog of over 300 works, Larsen’s curiosity with and interest in
art, literature, poetry, drama, history, nature, and popular culture is evident. She explains,
“In my music I try to communicate something about what it is like to be alive now by
arranging sound in space and time, for that’s what composing is. I am intensely
committed to living in my own times.”5 For Larsen the world around her is filled with
musical possibilities, which she has been translating into her compositions since her
grade school years. She notes: “I hear the whole sound, dynamically balanced, and I can
switch it around to think about what Γm going to do two movements ahead, all in the
fraction of a second.”6
This document will explore the manner in which Larsen has taken elements of her
world and transformed them into musical sound and the evolution of the way in which
she has done so. Uniting all the works in this study is the composer’s energy and
enthusiasm for the entire commissioning process: composing, rehearsing, and
5 Michelle N. Shoemaker, “Language, Imagery, and Reference: The Clarinet as a Cultural
Vehicle in Libby Larsen’s Instrumental Music” (D.M.A. diss., New England
Conservatory, 2002), 1.
6 Kristine Mortensen, “Rebel with a Cause,” Upbeat (March 1992): 3, quoted in Boyer,
13.