Michael Harrison (musician)

For other people named Michael Harrison, see Michael Harrison (disambiguation).
composer/pianist Michael Harrison.

Michael Harrison is an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist who specializes in working with just intonation tunings, and North Indian classical music.

Life

Harrison studied composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music with Reiko Fueting and the University of Oregon, and began investigating alternative tunings while studying with La Monte Young, and Indian classical music with Pandit Pran Nath and Terry Riley in this same period (Wise 2005). As Young’s composition and tuning assistant, Harrison executed the highly specialized tunings and scores for his 6½-hour work, The Well-Tuned Piano, later becoming the only person besides the composer to perform this work. In 1986, he designed and created the “harmonic piano,” an extensively modified seven-foot grand piano with the ability to alternate between two different tunings to play 24 notes per octave on a conventional keyboard.

Harrison has collaborated or performed with leading performers, filmmakers, choreographers, artists and architects including filmmaker Bill Morrison, Roomful of Teeth, Stuttgart Ballet, cellist Maya Beiser, Kronos Quartet, JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Young People’s Chorus of New York City, Contemporaneous, violinist Mari Kimura, architect David Gersten and conceptual artist Loris Greaud. His music has been performed throughout the world including at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Louvre Museum, Centre Pompidou, United Nations, Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, MASS MoCA, Spoleto Festival USA, Bang on a Can, Ojai Music Festival, Other Minds Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Quattro Pianoforti Festival in Rome, American Academy in Rome, Strings of Autumn International Music Festival in Prague, Havana Contemporary Music Festival, American Film Institute Film Festival, and Sundance Film Festival.

Harrison is the co-founder and president of the American Academy of Indian Classical Music and a disciple of master Indian vocalist Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, with whom he performs regularly. He is the Dean of Music of 'Noble International University,' Music Director for Arts, Letters & Numbers, and has been on faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design, Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program, and Bang on a Can’s Summer Institute. Recent awards include the American Composers Forum Delegation to Cuba, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Classical Recording Foundation, IBLA Foundation Grand Prize, University of Oregon Alumnus of the Year, and fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, MASS MoCA, Yaddo, Bogliasco Foundation, Atlantic Music Festival, Djerassi Artists Residency, Ucross Foundation, Millay Colony for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony, where he serves on the Fellows Executive Committee.

His major works include Just Constellations for vocal arts project Roomful of Teeth, Harmonic Constellations for multi-track violins and computer generated sine tones for Mari Kimura, Just Ancient Loops for multi-track cellos for Maya Beiser with a film by Bill Morrison, “Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation” for piano in an original just intonation tuning, and From Ancient Worlds for the harmonic piano.

Discography

Compositions

References

Further reading

External links

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