LeBaron served as composer-in-residence in Washington, DC, sponsored by Meet the Composer from 1993 until 1996. She was an assistant professor of music at the
University of Pittsburgh from 1996 to 2001. She was appointed Professor of Music at the
California Institute of the Arts in 2001, where she held the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition from 2013 until 2015. In 2024, she retired from teaching and was appointed professor emerita.
Composition LeBaron's composition in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms embraces a wide range of media and styles. Frequently combining tonal and atonal techniques, she has utilized elements of blues, jazz, pop, rock, and folk music in such scores as the opera
The E. and O. Line (1993),
American Icons (1996) for orchestra, and
Traces of Mississippi (2000) for chorus, orchestra, poet narrators, and rap artists. She has also used American literary sources with
Devil in the Belfry (1993) for violin and piano, inspired by
Edgar Allan Poe, and
Is Money Money (2000), a setting of
Gertrude Stein texts for soprano and chamber ensemble. Among her multicultural compositions are
Lamentation/Invocation (1984) for baritone and three instruments, using Korean-derived gestures and long sustained tones for the voice;
Noh Reflections (1985) for string trio, which draws upon the music of Japanese
Noh theater;
Breathtails (2012) for baritone, string quartet, and Japanese
shakuhachi; and her large-scale celebration of
Kazakhstan,
The Silent Steppe Cantata (2011) for tenor Timur Bekbosunov, women's chorus, and an orchestra of traditional Kazakh instruments, premiered at Congress Hall in
Astana. Writing about LeBaron's 1989
Telluris Theoria Sacra (for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, percussion, and piano), musicologist
Susan McClary notes that the work "...points to LeBaron's more pervasive interest in music's ability to mold temporality, immersing the listener in a sound world in which time bends, stands still, dances, or conforms to the mechanical measure of the clock". Theater has played an important role in LeBaron's music, with such scores as
Concerto for Active Frogs (1974) for voices, three instruments, and tape, and the harp solos
I Am an American ... My Government Will Reward You (1988) and
Hsing (2002). She has also composed a series of monodramas for female voice and chamber musicians:
Pope Joan (2000),
Transfiguration (2003),
Sucktion (2008), and
Some Things Should Not Move (2013). LeBaron's operas
The E. and O. Line (and the shorter version,
Blue Calls Set You Free),
Croak (The Last Frog) (1996), and
Wet (2005) were all collaborative works that led her to develop the genre she terms "hyperopera": "an opera resulting from intensive collaboration across all the disciplines essential for producing opera in the 21st century – in a word, a 'meta-collaborative' undertaking". With her hyperopera
Crescent City (2012, libretto by
Douglas Kearney), LeBaron went a step beyond the nineteenth-century concept of the
Gesamtkunstwerk (the united/total/universal artwork that synthesized architecture, scenic painting, singing, instrumental music, poetry, drama, and dance), championed by
Richard Wagner. A more lateral, inclusive, and intensive collaboration of artists occurs with hyperopera, breaking down the usual hierarchical structures of traditional opera, which define and limit the roles of individuals on creative and production teams. The genre of hyperopera involves the collaborations of a diverse group of artists, which pierce the regimented boundaries of the roles of creators, performers, designers, and producers. In the postmodern tradition of redefining opera, also seen in the work of
Robert Ashley,
Meredith Monk, and
Robert Wilson, LeBaron replaced the Wagnerian orchestra with smaller and more specialized forces of instruments and electronic sound for
Crescent City, with musicians who move readily among stylistic genres, just as the vocalists do. The opera's theatrical action is refracted through a prism of video work, lighting effects, and performance freedoms and simultaneities. For its world premiere production in Los Angeles in 2012,
Crescent City also engaged six visual artists to participate in the collaborative process by designing and building set pieces as various locales in the opera. Prior to the full production of
Crescent City, LeBaron composed
Phantasmagoriettas from Crescent City, performed by the LOOS Electro Acoustic Media Orchestra and soloists from Los Angeles during the Dag in de Branding Festival in the Hague in 2007.
Improvisation As an improviser LeBaron employs a wide array of extended techniques for the harp, including preparing the harp (similar to
John Cage's prepared piano) and bowing the strings, as well as a variety of electronic enhancements. Her development of a new performance vocabulary for the instrument began in the early 1970s, when she played in the Alabama improvising ensemble Trans Museq along with
Davey Williams and
LaDonna Smith. Her career as an improviser has included performance collaborations with such creative composer/musicians as
Anthony Braxton,
Muhal Richard Abrams,
Evan Parker,
George E. Lewis,
Derek Bailey,
Leroy Jenkins,
Lionel Hampton,
Fred Frith,
Evan Parker,
Anthony Davis,
Wadada Leo Smith,
Gerry Hemingway, and
Shelley Hirsch. LeBaron's double-CD
1, 2, 4, 3 (Innova 236, 2010) features collaborations with thirteen different musicians in solo, duo, quartet and trio configurations. LeBaron performs in Los Angeles and elsewhere with the Present Quartet, composed of Ellen Burr; flutes, Charles Sharp, reeds, and Jeff Schwarz, bass. == Selected awards, grants, and fellowships ==