Libby Larsen (June 2017)
Picture with Libby Larsen and Geoffrey Conquer
I had the opportunity this past week at SongFest to work with Libby Larsen. She is known as a predominantly art song composer, and we worked together on "Lord Make Me An Instrument" and "I Cried Unto God," the latter in a master class.
I was struck by Libby's energy and the amazing care she puts into curating and creating inspiring performances of her music. When I first received the scores, they had her personal home address on them (or such is my assumption) in what looked like a hand-sealed envelope.
Simply put, that is Libby. She is one of the most personable people I have ever met, and truly cares about how the performances are shaped by her writing. So much so that pianist Geoffrey Conquer and I collaborated on a new edition of "Lord, Make Me An Instrument" that was edited throughout our week based on our coachings together. As a singer, having a composer specifically looking to please your vocal needs is a huge luxury that I never expected when beginning to learn the piece. Normally, every challenge is an opportunity to improve technique and interpretation, but I felt honored that somehow my voice was worthy of the piece being adjusted for my sake.
In the master class, we worked with "I cried unto God," dedicated to Thomas King, a voice teacher at my undergrad, DePauw University. It was great connecting humans who had never directly worked on the piece together and I was glad to bring, as Libby said, "humanity" to a piece whose text is almost untenable.
“You brought humanity to the piece. You made me believe, even for a moment.”
December Update: In October, Geoffrey and I recorded the two pieces that had been coached by Libby at DePauw University, with Matthew Champagne as the recording engineer and Shannon Barry as the producer. In addition, Libby had asked us to record a Christmas piece, "Lullay of the Nativity." This beautiful piece takes a chant-like melody and imposes jazz chords underneath it, combined both the High Church historical background of Christmas carols with the more modern lens of accessibility.