Michael Harrison (musician)

Michael Harrison is an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist. He occupies a unique niche as an artist who has bridged the European musical traditions with those of North Indian classical music, forging an entirely new approach to composition through tunings and methodologies that employ and extend the ancient concept of "just intonation". The quality of his work and personal vision has earned him the label of, in the words of composer Philip Glass, a "maverick, outside composer" (Glass 2006).

Born in Bryn Mawr, PA, Harrison grew up in Eugene, OR, where his father, David K. Harrison was a professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon. As a child and teenager, he spent summers in both Chatham and Concord, MA with his grandfather, George R. Harrison, a professor of experimental physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1930), and Dean of Science (1942–64), who had a seminal influence on him.

He studied piano from the age of 6, composition from the age of 17, and North Indian classical vocal music from the age of 18, and attended Phillips Academy Andover. Early passions also included backpacking and mountain climbing in the Oregon Cascades and Himalayas, downhill and cross-country skiing, and chess. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.M. in Composition, where he later received the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award, and then moved to New York City to study with La Monte Young through a Dia Art Foundation Apprenticeship-in Residency (Wise 2005). He later received an M.M. in composition from the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Fueting.

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