Tastemakers & Pioneers to Welcome Michael Harrison Tomorrow

Faith & Culture at Annunciation Church will present Tastemakers & Pioneers featuring Composer/Pianist Michael Harrison on Everything in Good Measure: Ancient Greek Principles of Tuning and Their Relevance to Music. Featuring a screening of "Just Ancient Loops" - a collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison and cellist Maya Beiser on Friday, December 6, 2013 at 7pm.

Composer, pianist and music theorist Michael Harrison has been called "An American Maverick" by Philip Glass. With a uniquely personal style, Harrison's music is both forward looking and deeply rooted in different forms of traditional music. This perspective, alongside a simple and elegant gift for melody, makes him a composer that can reach audiences of many kinds. Through his expertise in "just intonation" tunings, Indian ragas and rhythmic cycles, Harrison has developed a variety of tuning systems including the highly acclaimed "Revelation" tuning that is featured on his award winning composition of the same name.

As an apprentice to the visionary composer La Monte Young, Harrison became the only other person in the world to perform Young's 6 ½ hour opus, "The Well-Tuned Piano." In 1986, Harrison designed and created the "harmonic piano," an extensively modified grand piano with the ability to play 24 notes per octave. Kyle Gann from The Village Voice hailed the harmonic piano as "an indisputable landmark in the history of Western tuning," and the instrument is described in detail in the second edition of the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Harrison's compositions have consistently appeared on numerous best classical recordings lists including those of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time Out New York, and NPR. He has performed his music and received premieres at the Spoleto Festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr in Germany, Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, American Academy in Rome, Newman Center for the Performing Arts in Denver, Music in the Morning in Vancouver, Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, United Nations, Symphony Space, Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd St. Y, Wordless Music Series, numerous Bang On A Can Marathons, and with Kronos Quartet at Carnegie Hall performing with his mentor Terry Riley on In C.

Lecture Summary: Pythagoras and other ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians discovered that musical harmonies arise naturally from mathematical relationships based on whole numbers. "Just Intonation" or "Pure Tuning" is the universal foundation for harmony. However, in Western classical music the use of temperament gradually compromised the purity of this system. Yet "just intonation" provides the foundation for most a cappella music of the West, from Gregorian chant and renaissance polyphony, to Byzantine music and "barbershop" harmonies, as well as the music of many world music cultures. A composer on the forefront of this field, Harrison will also play recorded excerpts, and discuss how returning to these ancient principles opens up unlimited potential with a "new" approach to "ancient" harmonies.

FaithCulture@Annunciation-NYC.org
Subway: 1/2/3 to 96th Street; 1 to 86th Street
Admission: $20
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/450957