Composer Anne LeBaron's Work
Featured on PBS Documentary

Anne Lebaron

Saratoga Springs, NY (November 16, 2001) — A large-scale work by Yaddo composer Anne LeBaron is featured in the PBS documentary "Continental Harmony" now being broadcast on PBS stations throughout the country.

"Continental Harmony" documents a unique collaborative project to create new music in communities across America. Ms. LeBaron's Traces of Mississippi, for two choruses, orchestra, poet narrators, and rap artists, closes out the one-hour program. Emmy Award winning filmmaker Ed Robbins produced the documentary in association with Twin Cities Public Television in Minneapolis. It airs on New York City's WNET and on KCET in Los Angeles this Sunday, and on WHYY in Philadelphia on November 23.

Ms. LeBaron, who has enjoyed many working residencies at Yaddo, is an internationally noted composer, harpist, and educator. She is recognized as an innovative composer who has written for virtually every contemporary genre. Her works have been performed and broadcast throughout the United States and Europe as well as in Hungary, Australia, Japan, The Czech Republic, Cuba, and Hong Kong. Among Ms. LeBaron's numerous awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a McKim Commission from the Library of Congress.

The "Continental Harmony" project is a program of the American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts. It is the first nationwide music commissioning program in American history. Beginning as a celebration of the new millennium, people in every state worked with composers to bring to life new music that reflected their history, culture, and hopes for the future. Host organizations - from museums to civic groups - selected composers to be their partners in the creation of original music for the Continental Harmony project. The composers worked in the communities with various groups and helped local musicians prepare the new compositions for premiere performances. Ms. LeBaron worked in the state of Mississippi with the Tougaloo College Concert Choir and other performers. The American Composers Forum recently issued a call for composers for Continental Harmony II.

For a schedule of PBS broadcast dates for the documentary "Continental Harmony", please visit www.pbs.org/harmony.