Larsen has composed a wide variety of concert works as well as music for theater and film. He has had many highly successful premieres throughout Europe, Asia and North America with various international artists.
Inspired by his background as a concert pianist in Europe performing a large repertoire of the High Romantics, Larsen has an unusually prolific output of piano works. The composer has also written a significant body of orchestral compositions, as well as orchestrations of his piano works, including Eternal Rhapsodie, Celebration and Mass Ascension.
Larsen’s technique is grounded in his direct lineage of history’s greatest composers including Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt Chopin, Saint-Saens and Ravel, as well as his work with John Adams.
Larsen’s transcriptions of film scores have met with resounding success including Innocents Mission Fantasy, Nosferatu Overture, music written for Star Trek and Martin Scorsese’s Something To Believe In.
The composer’s output of transcriptions for solo piano included Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Beethoven’s 7th Symphony and Coriolan Overture, which have received premieres in London.
Larsen’s DVD of original music “Elegie”, directed by Lydia Green, was completed in October, 2003 and his new DVD “Bridges and Beyond”, directed by Enrico Benegivenga is slated for shooting in September, 2011.
For a sample of Larsen’s concert music, including Transcendence, Nosferatu Overture, Dawn of Freedom, Solstice, Sherwood Forest and Ascension, please visit the Music Page. Recordings, including “Live at St. Martins-in-the-Fields” are available through carterlarsen@hotmail.com
After composing Fantasia Suite a continuous cycle of music in a bold, new contemporary idiom, to date Larsen has composed more than 400 pieces: 7 Solo Piano Volumes, 5 Piano Concertos, 4 Two Pianos Volumes and 12 Symphonies.
