Composer. Born on a farm near Chandler, Oklahoma, he grew up in California's San Gabriel Valley. After serving in the Army during World War I he studied music at UCLA and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1928 on the strength of his "Concerto for Piano, Clarinet and String Quartet", which brought him overnight fame when it was broadcast nationally on the radio. Harris was soon established in the front rank of American composers. While many of his contemporaries sought to create a nationalist idiom by assimilating folk sources (Thomson, Copland) or through jazz (Gershwin), Harris went his own way, creating music that was modern and individual yet somehow authentically American. Conductor Serge Koussevitsky called his masterpiece, the Third Symphony (1939), "the greatest orchestral work yet written in America". Leonard Bernstein later conducted it around the world and recorded it twice. Of his 15 other symphonies the most significant are the Fourth (1939), the Fifth (1943), and the Seventh (1955). Harris held many teaching posts and his prominent students included William Schuman and Peter "P. D. Q. Bach" Schickele. At the time of his death he was Professor Emeritus of Music at UCLA.
Composer. Born on a farm near Chandler, Oklahoma, he grew up in California's San Gabriel Valley. After serving in the Army during World War I he studied music at UCLA and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1928 on the strength of his "Concerto for Piano, Clarinet and String Quartet", which brought him overnight fame when it was broadcast nationally on the radio. Harris was soon established in the front rank of American composers. While many of his contemporaries sought to create a nationalist idiom by assimilating folk sources (Thomson, Copland) or through jazz (Gershwin), Harris went his own way, creating music that was modern and individual yet somehow authentically American. Conductor Serge Koussevitsky called his masterpiece, the Third Symphony (1939), "the greatest orchestral work yet written in America". Leonard Bernstein later conducted it around the world and recorded it twice. Of his 15 other symphonies the most significant are the Fourth (1939), the Fifth (1943), and the Seventh (1955). Harris held many teaching posts and his prominent students included William Schuman and Peter "P. D. Q. Bach" Schickele. At the time of his death he was Professor Emeritus of Music at UCLA.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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