Libby Larsen is one of Minnesota's best known composers. It turns out that for the last 10 years, Larsen has been listening to a lot of "electronica," including rave, turntable, and re-mix music.
MPR’s Chris Roberts presents Open Ears, an ongoing series of audio features that explores how contemporary musicians' listening habits shape their music-making. Each installment features a Twin Cities musician talking about a favorite piece of music from a genre outside his or her own. The series taps musicians' wide-ranging tastes and deep musical knowledge as it explores the surprising and revealing influences that affect today's sounds.
Transcripts
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LIBBY LARSEN: My name is Libby Larsen, and I am a living American composer.
SPEAKER 1: That's an excerpt from Libby Larsen's "Water Music," performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Larsen is one of Minnesota's best known composers and is taking part in a new series we've launched on Morning Edition. It's called "Open Ears." We're asking local musicians to talk about a favorite piece of music from a genre outside their area of expertise. It turns out that for the last 10 years, Libby Larsen has been listening to a lot of electronica, including rave, turntable, and remix music.
SPEAKER 2: Thank you for coming out this evening. Thank you for coming down here to the club. We had a good time with you. We want you to party with us. Come on down to the disco, right?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LIBBY LARSEN: My world is strictly the classically, academically trained world, and yet the music that excites me is music that draws upon-- we call it "Sampling Now, Other Musics" and puts them together and makes a piece of music out of it.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Ooh, yeah, oh, yeah
Ooh, yeah
Oh, yeah
Ooh, yeah
Ooh, oh
Ooh, yeah
Ooh, oh
La-la la-la la-la la-la la-la doo-da
Da da
La-la la-la la-la
LIBBY LARSEN: The group I'm listening to now is The Avalanches, an Australian punk rock remix turntable group. The piece is called "Since I Left You." It's one piece, and it's 60 minutes long. And it takes you on a journey without you even knowing it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It throws me into a multidimensional space in my brain, where I hear the music, really hear it as directional-- coming from the left, the right, the front, the back, and bringing my brain into a place in music that is-- I would call it ecstatic, actually. The only other time I've ever felt this way is hearing Gregorian Chant sung in a large cathedral.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm visiting the '70s. I'm visiting cities I've never been in before. I have a kind of urban energy that's accompanying me on this journey. And I'm the journey. No one's taking me on the journey. I am the journey. And that's new.