Michael Harrison

Michael Harrison, Composition Course Faculty: Acoustics and Tuning Systems

Composer/pianist Michael Harrison’s works blend classical music traditions of Europe and North India. He seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound – music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and even mind-altering experience. Harrison is a Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowship recipient.

His latest release Seven Sacred Names reached the top 10 classical albums on Billboard and was called “music of positively intoxicating beauty” in The New Yorker. Just Constellations, commissioned and recorded by Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, was among NPR’s Best 100 Songs of 2020 and Bandcamp’s Best of Contemporary Classical 2020. Time Loops was among NPR’s Top 10 Classical Albums of 2012. His work, Revelation, achieved international recognition and inclusion in the Best Classical Recordings of 2007 selections of The New York Times and Boston Globe. Harrison collaborates with performers including Alarm Will Sound, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Maya Beiser, and others, who have commissioned his works using just intonation.

Harrison invented the “harmonic piano,” which plays 24 notes per octave. His primary teachers are La Monte Young, Terry Riley, master Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, and Reiko Fueting. Harrison received his Masters in Composition at MSM.

His recent engagements include the Minimal Music Festival in Amsterdam, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, DaCamera and The Menil Collection in Houston, and the Mattatoio Museum in Rome. Past performances of his music include BAM Next Wave Festival, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Park Avenue Armory, United Nations, the Louvre, Pompidou Centre, MASS MoCA, Spoleto, Big Ears, and Sundance.