1,2,4,3

Anne LeBaron's harp is not your grandmother's harp. Probably. 

"In the early 1970's I began improvising with my first harp, a Wurlitzer with ivory pegs, rescued and restored from its fate as an unstrung object languishing in the corner of an elderly couple's living room. Many of these explorations took place during regular Sunday night sessions in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, at the home of LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams. Here, a group of musicians gathered to embark on musical odysseys into uncharted territories. Our models ranged from surrealist concepts and philosophies, to the purism of Derek Bailey, to the gritty blues of Johnny Shines. My exploration of the harp — finding ways to prepare it, to bow the steel-wound wires, and gut and nylon strings, and to slither vertically on the strings, discovering endless microtonal worlds - was stimulated by this proto-environment. Later, living and performing in Europe in the 80's, I made music with 'first-generation' improvising musicians, some of whom are represented on this 2CD set of solos, duets, quartets, and trios: 1,2,4,3." 

The recordings span eight years, four generations of musicians, hailing from seven countries. Most of the tracks are from live performances capturing the spontaneous moments between consummate improvisers getting to know one another and co-composing a time together. All feature LeBaron's sonorous harp playing in myriad guises. 

Anne LeBaron, composer and performer, writes music embracing an exotic array of subjects that encompass vast reaches of space and time, ranging from the mysterious Singing Dune of Kazakhstan, to investigations into physical and cultural forms of extinction, to legendary figures such as Pope Joan, Eurydice, Marie Laveau, and the American Housewife. Widely recognized for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms, she has earned numerous awards and prizes, including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Alpert Award in the Arts, a Fulbright Full Fellowship, an award from the Rockefeller MAP Fund for her opera, Sucktion, and a 2009-2010 Cultural Exchange International Grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for The Silent Steppe Cantata. She teaches composition and related subjects at CalArts. 

This release is part of innova's NEA-funded NYFA Series that celebrates the work of New York Foundation for the Arts Music Composition Fellows.