Donald Harris (April 7, 1931, in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

March 29, 2016, in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

) was an American composer who taught music at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

for 22 years. He was Dean of the College of the Arts from 1988 to 1997. Harris earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Music from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He completed further studies at the

Tanglewood Music Center The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops. The center operates as a part of the Tanglew ...

and the Centre Français d'Humanisme Musical in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

. He studied with

Ross Lee Finney Ross Lee Finney Junior (December 23, 1906–February 4, 1997) was an American composer who taught for many years at the University of Michigan. Life and career Born in Wells, Minnesota, Finney received his early training at Carleton College a ...

Max Deutsch Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with Arnold Schönberg and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he ...

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

Boris Blacher Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist. Life Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (he ...

Lukas Foss Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...

, and

André Jolivet André Jolivet (; 8 August 1905 – 20 December 1974) was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet drew on his interest in acoustics and atonality, as well as both ancient and modern musical influe ...

. He founded the Contemporary Music Festival at Ohio State in 2000. Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, he served on the faculties and as an administrator of the

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...

of Music and the

Hartt School of Music The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, that offers degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. Founded in 1920 by Julius Hartt and ...

. From 1954 to 1968, Harris lived in Paris, where he served as music consultant to the

United States Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill C ...

and produced the city's first postwar Festival of Contemporary American Music.The Ohio State University Archives, Donald Harris Collection (RG: 40/292) A documentary about Harris entitled ''Sonata 1957'' was produced by Daniel Beliavsky through opus1films in 2011. It explores Harris's development in mid-20th-century Paris, when pre-war musical thought bridged with post-war experimentation.

Works

Stage Works

* ''The Legend Of John Henry'' (1954) ballet for orchestra * ''The Golden Deer'' (1955) ballet for orchestra * ''Intervals'' (1959) dance work for chamber ensemble

Other

* ''Piano Sonata'' (1957) * ''Fantasy For Violin & Piano'' (1957) * ''Symphony In Two Movements'' (1958–1961) * ''String Quartet'' (1965) * ''Ludus'' (1966) for ten instruments * ''Ludus II'' (1973) for five instruments * ''On Variations'' (1976) for chamber orchestra * ''Charmes'' (1971–1980; unfinished) for soprano and orchestra; after the poems of

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...

* ''For The Night To Wear'' (1978) for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble; after the Hortense Flexner poem * ''Balladen'' (1979) for solo piano * ''Of Hartford In A Purple Light'' (1979) for soprano with piano accompaniment; after the

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

poem * ''Prelude To A Concert In Connecticut'' (1981) for orchestra * ''Les Mains'' (1983) for mezzo-soprano with piano accompaniment; after the

Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar (, , ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the ''Prix Fem ...

poem * ''Meditations'' (1984) for solo organ, commissioned by the South Congregational-First Baptist Church, New Britain, Connecticut, and its organist and music director, Richard Coffey, to honor the 10th annviersary of the Cooper Memorial Organ. Includes memorials to Thomas Putsche (

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

Sine Nomine ''Sine nomine'' (abbreviated s.n.) is a Latin expression, meaning "without a name". It is most commonly used in the contexts of publishing and bibliographical listings such as library catalogs, to signify that the publisher (or distributor, etc.) ...

) and

Norman Dinerstein Norman Myron Dinerstein (September 18, 1937 – December 23, 1982) was an American composer and pedagogue. Life and career A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Dinerstein received his bachelor's degree in music from Boston University in 19 ...

(Kol Nidre). * ''Three Fanfares For Four Horns'' (1984) * ''Canzona & Carol'' (1986) for double brass quintet and timpani * ''Pierrot Lieder'' (1988) for soprano and chamber ensemble; after the

Albert Giraud Albert Giraud (; 23 June 1860 – 26 December 1929) was a Belgian poet who wrote in French. Biography Giraud was born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven, Belgium. He studied law at the University of Leuven. He left university without a degr ...

poem * ''Mermaid Variations'' (1992) for chamber orchestra * ''String Quartet #2'' (2002) * ''A Lyric Fanfare'' (2003) for orchestra publication: Theodore Presser, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 2002 * ''Five Tempi (Ludus III)'' (2004) for chamber ensemble * ''Symphony No. 2'' (2006–11) for large orchestra; co-commissioned by the

Koussevitzky Music Foundation Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling " Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevi ...

and

Columbus Symphony Orchestra The Columbus Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Columbus, Ohio. The oldest performing arts organization in the city, its home is the Ohio Theatre. The orchestra's current Executive Director is Denise Rehg. Ross ...

* ''Kaleidoscope'' (2007) for orchestra

Awards and honors

Harris was awarded a

Fulbright Award The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

in 1956, the

Prince Rainier III Rainier III (Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi; 31 May 1923 – 6 April 2005) was Prince of Monaco from 1949 to his death in 2005. Rainier ruled the Principality of Monaco for almost 56 years, making him one of the longest-ruling m ...

of Monaco Composition Award in 1962 (deuxieme mention), a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1966, a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Fellowship Grant in Composition in 1974, the A.C. Fuller Award of the Julius Hartt Musical Foundation in 1988, and the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

/Deems Taylor Award in 1989 (for co-editing ''The Berg Schoenberg Correspondence'' ). He received commissions with the

Serge Koussevitzky Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevit ...

Music Foundation (

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge aka Liz Coolidge (30 October 1864 – 4 November 1953), born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music. Biography Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge's father was a we ...

Foundation (

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is a full-time professional chamber orchestra based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In collaboration with five Artistic Partners, the orchestra's musicians present more than 130 concerts and educational programs ea ...

Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed with a wide variety of ...

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Sev ...

, Goethe Institute (Boston),

Boston Musica Viva Boston Musica Viva is a Boston, Massachusetts-based music ensemble founded by its Music Director, Richard Pittman, in 1969 and dedicated to contemporary music. Composers and compositions In its 44-year history, Boston Musica Viva has performed m ...

Connecticut Public Radio Connecticut Public Radio is a network of public radio stations in the state of Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and eastern Long Island, affiliated with NPR (National Public Radio). It is owned by Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, which ...

Cleveland Chamber Symphony The Cleveland Chamber Symphony is an American chamber orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music, and has presented over 200 performance premieres. History The Cleveland Chamber Sympho ...

, Arnold Schoenberg Institute, and Festival of Contemporary American Music at

Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the T ...

. In 1991, he received an award in composition from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

, which led to a retrospective recording of his work on the CRI label in 1994. In 2011, he was the featured composer of the Ohio State University Contemporary Music Festival, a festival which he founded. The King Arts Complex honored him with a Legends & Legacies award in October 2011. He received an honorary

Doctor of Music The Doctor of Music degree (D.Mus., D.M., Mus.D. or occasionally Mus.Doc.) is a higher doctorate awarded on the basis of a substantial portfolio of compositions and/or scholarly publications on music. Like other higher doctorates, it is granted b ...

degree from Ohio State in June 2012.

References

External links