Julius Harrison

Julius Allan Greenway Harrison (26 March 1885 – 5 April 1963) was an English composer who was particularly known for his conducting of operatic works. Born in Lower Mitton, Stourport in Worcestershire, by the age of 16 he was already an established musician. His career included a directorship of opera at the Royal Academy of Music where he was a professor of composition, a position as répétiteur at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conductor for the British National Opera Company, military service as an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and founder member and vice-president of the Elgar Society.

Harrison was born in 1885 in Lower Mitton, Stourport in Worcestershire. He was the eldest of four sons and three daughters of Walter Henry Harrison a grocer and candle maker from the village of Powick near Malvern, and his wife, Henriette Julien née Schoeller, a German-born former governess. He was educated at a dame school in Stourport, and at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Hartlebury. The family was musical; Walter Harrison was conductor of the Stourport Glee Union, and Henriette was Julius's first piano teacher. He later took organ and violin lessons from the organist of Wilden parish church, and sang in the church choir.

At the age of 16 Harrison was appointed organist and choirmaster at Areley Kings Church, and at Hartlebury Church at the age of 21. When he was 17 he directed the Worcester Musical Society in a performance of his own Ballade for Strings. He gained two Firsts in music in Cambridge local examinations, and studied under at the Birmingham and Midland Institute of Music where he specialised in conducting.

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