Larry Mizen is a gifted engineer and self-taught musician and choral singer, who has reinvented himself as a composer. He discovered classical music at an early age, becoming an avid listener and a connoisseur of fine performances. He developed an extensive knowledge of the repertoire and an equally extensive CD collection. He has been an avid choral singer for many years, performing in the tenor section with the Paul Madore Chorale, Nashua Choral Society, and currently, the Andover Choral Society. In 2010, he participated in two performances of the Mahler Eighth Symphony in Lexington, Mass. and Nashua, New Hampshire, with the combined forces of several area choruses and orchestras.

A General Electric engineer for more than forty years, Larry was responsible for the control systems of many power plants in the US and abroad. Since his retirement, he has indulged his fascination for the art of composition. Largely self-taught, he has taken advantage of his fine musical ear, applying his natural aptitude for form and organization to the themes in his fertile musical imagination, with the assistance of the computer program, Noteworthy, and a keyboard.

Larry studied briefly with Boston area composer Andrew List. His string quartet, Semplice, was premiered in 2010 in a private performance in which NCO conductor, David Feltner, played viola. ! ! Fanfarria, for three trumpets, was a sudden inspiration, completed in three weeks and realized in performance and recording by the three trumpet players in the Mizen family. Fanfarria, Spanish for “fanfare”, is a fantasy in three sections, fast-slow-fast, loosely tied together by related themes. Each section has its own distinctive fanfare character. Though written in a contemporary idiom, Fanfarria evokes medieval or Renaissance images of royalty.