Michael Harrison
www.michaelharrison.com
Michael Harrison, composer and pianist, has been called “an American Maverick” (Philip Glass). With an expertise in Indian ragas, rhythmic cycles, and an innate gift for melodic composition, he has developed one of the most distinctive musical styles of our time. Through his adaptation of Pythagorean principles of harmonic resonance to create new tunings and scales, he composed Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation, which is being released on Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe Music label (October 2007). Michael combines a lifelong immersion in both Western and Indian classical music to create “a new harmonic world…of vibrant sound” (The New York Times). He became a protégé of La Monte Young and a disciple of the late Pandit Pran Nath in 1979. Michael shares a passion for Indian music with composer and friend Terry Riley, with whom he has performed as a vocalist and on tambura in numerous concerts and trips to India. Today he works and performs with master Indian vocalist Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan.
For the past 25 years, Michael has performed his music throughout the U.S. and Europe including performances and lectures at Lincoln Center, the United Nations, Symphony Space, Merkin Hall, the Manhattan School of Music, and the American Academy in Rome. He has been awarded grants and residencies from the Dia Art Foundation, IBLA Foundation, Classical Recording Foundation, MELA Foundation, Peter S. Reed Foundation, and Meet The Composer. He is the president of the American Academy of Indian Classical Music, which he co-founded with Pandit Vijay Kichlu, the founder and former director of India’s most prestigious musical institution, the Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata. He is teaching a graduate course in “just” intonation tunings and Indian ragas at the Manhattan School of Music and was on the faculty of the Bang on a Can Summer Institute at MASSMoCA in 2004 and 2005. Michael also co-owns Faust Harrison Pianos in New York City, one of the largest independent piano retailers in the world.
On the path to discovering his voice as a composer, Michael began his profession as a rock keyboardist and later as a pianist and improviser. His piano studies focused on both classical and jazz, and he went on to study composition at the University of Oregon, where he also did his graduate studies. During this time he traveled to New York City where he worked closely with La Monte Young preparing all of the specialized tunings and scores for Young's 6½-hour work, The Well-Tuned Piano. In 1987, Michael became the only other person besides the composer to perform this extended work.
In 1986, Michael designed and created the “harmonic piano,” an extensively modified grand piano with the ability to alternate between two different tunings to play 24 notes per octave on a conventional keyboard. Kyle Gann from The Village Voice hailed the harmonic piano as "an indisputable landmark in the history of Western tuning." From Ancient Worlds, Michael’s first extended work composed for the harmonic piano, was recorded in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for New Albion Records and was voted the “No. 2 Best Recording of the Year” in 1992 on WNYC-FM’s New Sounds Listener’s Poll. He performed this work in 1999 at the Quattro Pianoforti festival at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome that also included solo and group recitals with Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Charlemagne Palestine. His latest work, Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation is a compelling 75-minute composition that showcases one of Michael’s specialized tunings for conventional piano utilizing “celestial commas” (precisely tuned intervals of 64:63). He gave the first performance of Revelation as a work-in-progress in 2001 at Europe’s most prestigious piano festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr, in Germany, followed by the U.S. premiere at the Solo Flights festival hosted at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The grammy-nominated pianist Joshua Pierce gave the premiere of the new complete version at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall in 2005. Most recently, Michael performed Revelation at Bang on a Can’s 20th Anniversary 26-hour Marathon at the World Financial Center in New York City in June of 2007.
Michael is composing three new works over the next year: A work for cellist Wendy Sutter, entitled Cellorchestra, for solo amplified cello and media to create the sound of a string orchestra including 27 independent parts which sound simultaneously; Tone Clouds, for amplified string quartet and media—derived from sections of Revelation, for the San Francisco based Del Sol Quartet; and a series of collaborative works entitled Ragas, for piano with Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and other Indian classical musicians, again, with Michael implementing his special approach to pure intonation.
September 2007