47
Conclusions
Although Larsen’s experience in Louisiana generated just two works, Cajun Set and
The Silver Fox (1979), a one act opera for the young, her early exploration of indigenous
American music influenced the trajectory of her career and made its way both directly
and indirectly into a large number of her compositions. A later example of this influence
is in her 2001 work, Barn Dances for flute, clarinet, and piano. The titles of these
movements, Forward Six and Fall Back Eight, Divide the Ring, Varsouvianna, and
Rattlesnake Twist, are taken from various dance steps used in cowboy dances, and
although there are no musical quotations in this piece, her objective in the work was to
generate the “musical equivalent of a character drawing.” 77 It also led to her thinking
about Cajun influence in more mainstream American popular music, leading directly to
singer Little Richard, whom she credits as a major influence.78 Thirty years later, Larsen
still regards her trip to Louisiana and her musical experiences there as a major turning
point in her career:
That trip in 1980 was pivotal. You can’t hear the music without the
language. I think what happened was I had been searching for a long time
to understand where my creative center sat in relationship to that question
‘where does music come from?’ Γd been trained in chant where the music
is the language and the language is the music, and then matriculated into
the western music education system [where this is not the case]. Then
landing in the center of that same definition where the music is the
language of the people, I think I heard rock ’n’ roll in the backwoods
Cajun music, the origins of what I knew to be rock ’n’ roll, which didn’t
come from the western tradition.79
Libby Larsen, “Bam Dances”
http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1238&startRange=
(accessed 2 Febmary 2010).
78
Larsen, interview, 12/2009.
79 ,
Ibid.