29
Cajun Set
Origins
Cajun Set ,s origins date to a trip Larsen took to Louisiana to attend a traditional
Cajun wedding. At the time she enjoyed and was familiar with Zydeco music,41 which
also emerged from southwestern Louisiana, but this was her first experience with an older
traditional Cajun genre. Although in Louisiana for a short time, Larsen immersed herself
in the Cajun culture, visiting Preservation Hall in New Orleans and attending church
services in more rural areas. She was struck with how genuine and heartfelt the music
was, and upon returning to Minnesota, she decided to write a composition using some of
the melodies from this culture.42 She turned to a collection of Cajun Songs43 from which
she found source material for Cajun Set.44
Cajrm music’s diverse range of influences appealed to Larsen. Originally brought to
Louisiana by the French speaking Acadians of Canada, it has been described as “a
collision OfFrench European, Afro-Caribbean, and Mississippi Indian influences.”45 The
41 Zydeco was an offshoot of Creole music and gained widespread popularity in the
1950’s.
42 Larsen found great joy in listening to and working with Cajun melodies and still jokes
that this music is “so not Midwest! [It is] a complete joy! The bayou is the bayou!”
(Libby Larsen, interview by the author, phone transcript, 3 December 2009).
43Irene T. Whitfield, Louisiana French Folk Songs (Louisiana: Louisiana State University
Press, 1939).
44 Larsen doesn’t remember the name of the book she found; however, Whitfield’s
collection has all three songs within 25 pages of each other, and is the only published
collection of its kind. Whitfield’s study of French, Cajun, and Creole songs was initially a
masters thesis for Louisiana State University (Robert Santelli and others, eds., American
Roots Music, New York: Harry Abrams, Inc., 2001, 114).
45
Rick Koster, Louisiana Music (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 160.