the songwriter side of….
LARRY LESSER
Award-winning educator Larry
Lesser is also an award-winning songwriter! Larry has lived in El Paso since
2004 and songs such as “Border
Town” show its influence on his muse.
In one of his recent KTEP-FM interviews,
Larry played his call for deeper dialogue on campus gun violence, “What We Carry Now”. At a
2018 concert, UTEP’s stellar middle eastern music
ensemble premiered Larry’s song “Break”, a peace-seeking
culture-bridging song inspired by conversations with a former UTEP colleague
who grew up in Ramallah. And in 2020, UTEP’s Religious Studies program sponsored
events at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the
Visual Arts for the release of SPARKS, Larry’s album of original
nonliturgical songs grounded in Jewish text with
universal lessons.
Larry’s songwriting began in
college, then came of age during his grad school years in Austin, where he
served as ASG VP, had a
(cassette!) album release (which yielded his first radio airplay), interviewed
a major-label artist, and
won song contest awards. While full-time academia has kept him too busy to
record subsequent albums, Larry has had several songs win contest awards (e.g.,
2nd place in the fall 2012 El Paso Songwriting Contest) or get
recorded by indie artists and Larry has also published poetry.
As UTEP’s Professor Lesser
(hey, that rhymes!), Larry is
gratefully surprised that his longtime love for song has overlapped with his
academic endeavors (HERE’s a lively
example) and helped lead to prestigious teaching
awards. On using
music/song with teen/adult math/statistics learners, Larry has published
pioneering journal articles (and some 100 educational lyrics), won over a dozen
awards for songs/videos in recent national contests (e.g., NSF, ASA,
MoMath, CAUSE,
QL-SIGMAA), given banquet/keynote
presentations, was featured guest and lyricist for 6 STEM episodes
of a PBS-TV station’s children’s show, had newspaper/TV coverage (especially
for “American Pi” and “The
Gambler”), and has a current NSF
grant to create and assess interactive
songs to help students learn introductory statistics, an effort that
includes collaboration with UTEP music faculty Dominic
Dousa and Stephen
Haddad, and has spread to other disciplines (VOICES).
A 2006 visit from songwriting
influence David Wilcox (on a
cross-country Airstream family journey) sparked Larry’s parallel repertoire of
spiritual/Jewish songcraft, aligned with his role as
Affiliated Faculty in UTEP’s Inter-American Jewish Studies Program. For
example, his “Healing Song” appears
on CDs (by former UTEP instructors Ellen Wilson and Larry Bach), has been
used by congregations in several cities, and was featured in an NPR station interview
and in the blog of the literary journal of the Center for Bioethics and
Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University. And he co-wrote a song (with
renowned Jewish artist Robbi Sherwin) that appeared
on the debut CD of a top contemporary Jewish music group (Sababa).
Larry’s performances often
raise money or awareness for community organizations/events such as: Northern
Colorado Animal League, a county-wide AIDS Day program, UTEP Religious Studies’
International Day of Peace celebration (with Sara Potter), Insights
El Paso Science Center, the Center Against Family
Violence, Kelly Memorial Food Pantry, soup kitchen El Caldito,
and food pantry Casa de Peregrinos. Larry has also
opened for nationally-touring artists such as Roy Zimmerman, Chava Mirel, Shmuel Geller,
Charlie King and Karen Brandow. Larry has written
and/or performed songs for UTEP organizations (Religious Studies Program,
Centennial Museum, Social Justice Initiative, Women’s History Month conference,
Club Zero, and Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) and written
tributes for UTEP’s 2014 Centennial
and 2016 Quality
Enhancement Plan and President
Dr. Diana Natalicio (in 2018, when she announced
plans to retire). 