Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
– January 23, 2007;
Stowe, Vermont
Stowe is a town in Lamoille County, Vermont, United States. The population was 5,223 at the 2020 census. The town lies on Vermont Routes 108 and 100. It is nicknamed "The Ski Capital of the East" and is home to Stowe Mountain Resort, a ski faci ...
) was a composer, writer, and
music industry
The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...
executive. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Harman achieved particular distinction for his service in the
U.S. Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
. He piloted the first mission by a U.S.
military helicopter
A military helicopter is a helicopter that is either specifically built or converted for use by military forces. A military helicopter's mission is a function of its design or conversion. The most common use of military helicopters is transport ...
in a combat zone in 1944. In 1945, the U.S. Army awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross for these efforts. Harman later rendered service to the music industry over a career spanning the 1940s through the 1980s. In 1981, BMI awarded him their Commendation of Excellence, and the
American Composers Alliance The American Composers Alliance (ACA) is an American nonprofit composer service organization dedicated to the publishing and promoting of American contemporary classical music. Founded in 1937 by Aaron Copland, Milton Adolphus, Marion Bauer and oth ...
awarded him their Laurel Leaf Award.
Early life and education
Harman was born in the New York City
Borough of Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behin ...
on June 4, 1918. He began musical studies at age nine by learning how to play the clarinet. After graduating from the Morristown School (now Morristown-Beard School) in
Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. ...
, Harman received his bachelor's degree with high honors from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
. During his time at Princeton, he studied under composer
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher and musicologist. He had initially started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved further towards more complex harmonies and ...
, who won two
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
s. Harman served as music editor of the ''Nassau Lit'', the college
literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...
at Princeton. He also participated in the choir and band.
Following his service in the U.S. military during World War II, Harman completed his master's degree at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in 1949. He studied under
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music.
Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene, a conducto ...
, a
German-American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
pioneer of
tape music
Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco.
Career
Prior to founding ...
and
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
.
Military career
Before World War II, Harman flew
Piper
Piper may refer to:
People
* Piper (given name)
* Piper (surname)
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters Comics
* Piper (Morlock), in the Marvel Universe
* Piper (Mutate), in the Marvel Universe
Television
* Piper Chapman, lea ...
and
Waco
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...
aircraft. In 1943, he completed air force training in class 43-C of an Army Air Corps training program in Texas. Harman then served as a
flight instructor
A flight instructor is a person who teaches others to operate aircraft. Specific privileges granted to holders of a flight instructor qualification vary from country to country, but very generally, a flight instructor serves to enhance or evaluate ...
for primary training. He later joined the first class of helicopter pilots (five in total) of the U.S. Army Air Services. The group trained at
Sikorsky Aircraft
Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and was among the first companies to manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use.
Pre ...
's headquarters in
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. Stratford is in the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was settled ...
to learn to pilot the
YR-4B
The Sikorsky R-4 is a two-seat helicopter that was designed by Igor Sikorsky with a single, three-bladed main rotor and powered by a radial engine. The R-4 was the world's first large-scale mass-produced helicopter and the first helicopter used by ...
, an early military helicopter. (The R stood for
rotary aircraft
A rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings or rotor blades, which generate lift by rotating around a vertical mast. Several rotor blades mounted on a single mast are referred to as a rotor. The Internati ...
.) The YR-4B carried no onboard weapons. It featured a
cruising speed
Cruise is the phase of aircraft flight that starts when the aircraft levels off after a climb, until it begins to descend for landing. Cruising usually consumes the majority of a flight, and it may include changes in heading (direction of flight ...
of 65 miles per hour and a
range
Range may refer to:
Geography
* Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra)
** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands
* Range, a term used to i ...
of 130 miles.
On April 21, 1944, the
Japanese Imperial Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
in Burma shot down a
Stinson L-1 Vigilant
The Stinson L-1 Vigilant (company designation Model 74) is an American liaison aircraft designed by the Stinson Aircraft Company of Wayne, Michigan and manufactured at the Vultee-Stinson factory in Nashville, Tennessee (in August 1940 Stinson bec ...
rescue aircraft piloted by American Murphy Hladovack, which carried three wounded British soldiers. After a
Stinson L-5 Sentinel
The Stinson L-5 Sentinel is a World War II-era liaison aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces, U.S. Army Ground Forces, U.S. Marine Corps and the British Royal Air Force. It was produced by the Stinson Division of the Vultee Aircr ...
aircraft spotted the group, the
1st Air Commando Group 001, O01, or OO1 may refer to:
*1 (number), a number, a numeral
*001, fictional British agent, see 00 Agent
*001, former emergency telephone number for the Norwegian fire brigade (until 1986)
*AM-RB 001, the code-name for the Aston Martin Valkyrie ...
tasked Harman with rescuing them. His YR-4B was the only working helicopter among the four used by the group. The limited range of the YR-4B and small size of its
cabin
Cabin may refer to:
Buildings
* Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
* Log cabin, a house built from logs
* Cottage, a small house
* Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
* Cabin, small free-standing structures that serve as in ...
constrained how Harman managed the rescue operation. Harman had to transport the soldiers one by one to a liaison L-5 plane waiting at a designated sandbar and without the aid of weaponry. Over the span of two days, he ferried the soldiers to this plane to bring them to safety. The book ''Chopper: Firsthand Accounts of Helicopter Warfare, World War II to Iraq'' chronicles Harman's account of this first mission by a military helicopter.
Writing and music industry career
Following World War II, Harman resumed his a career as a
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
, which spanned two decades. He wrote articles for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' (1947–1952) and ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' (1952-1957). Harman also composed a ballet titled ''Blackface'', an opera titled ''The Food of Love'', and several
children's songs
A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied ...
. Recorded by
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
star
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in '' South Pacific'' (194 ...
, his children's songs were released as the album ''Mary Martin Sings for Children''.
Starting in the 1950s and continuing into the 1960s, Harman worked as a music critic in Puerto Rico. In 1956 he began his career as a
record producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...
, working with Emory Cook, founder of
Cook Records Cook Records was a record label founded by Emory Cook (1913–2002), an audio engineer and inventor. From 1952 to 1966, Cook used his Sounds of our Times and Cook Laboratories record labels to demonstrate his philosophy about sound, recording equipm ...
contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...
(now part of
New World Records
New World Records is a record label that was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to celebrate America's bicentennial (1976) by producing a 100-LP anthology, with American music from many genres.
During his music industry and writing career, Harman served as the sound recorder for the 1963 film ''
Lord of the Flies
''Lord of the Flies'' is a 1954 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes i ...
''. Directed by
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
and produced by
Lewis M. Allen
Lewis Maitland Allen (June 27, 1922 Berryville, Virginia – December 8, 2003 New York City) was an American film producer and Tony Award winning Broadway producer. He was married to screenwriter Jay Presson Allen. Allen was nominated for sev ...
, the film represented a British adaptation of
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his debut novel ''Lord of the Flies'' (1954), he published another twelve volumes of fiction in his lifetime. In 1980 ...
music history
Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view.
In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history o ...
up through the Jazz Age. Harman's later books examined the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
, a collaboration with his wife, Helen Scott Harman and editors at ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine (1963), and building activities to construct skyscrapers.
Family
Harman married Nancy Hallinan, a graduate of
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
, on February 5, 1946. They divorced and he married his second wife, Helen Scott. They had four children together: Lisa, Bruce, Scott, and Alex, who were all born in Puerto Rico. Carter later married his third wife, Wanda Maximilien
Works
*''A Popular History of Music — From Gregorian Chant to Jazz'' (1956)
*''The West Indies'' (1963)
*''A Skyscraper Goes Up'' (1973)