Discipline: Music Composition

John Harbison

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Cambridge, MA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2002
John Harbison is an American composer known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works. The Metropolitan Opera commissioned Harbison's The Great Gatsby to celebrate James Levine's 25th anniversary with the company. The opera premiered on December 20, 1999, conducted by Levine and starring Jerry Hadley, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Mark Baker, Dwayne Croft, and Richard Paul Fink. In 1991, Harbison was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival in conjunction with Peter Maxwell Davies. Harbison was jointly commissioned by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue to write a piece for the "Papal Concert of Reconciliation." Harbison was previously the principal guest conductor for Emmanuel Music in Boston; after Founding Director Craig Smith's untimely death in 2007, Harbison was named acting artistic director.

Studios

MacDowell

John Harbison worked in the MacDowell studio.

Built in 1912, Pine Studio was renamed MacDowell Studio in 1943 in recognition of support from a group of Edward MacDowell’s music students. It was built as a composers’ studio and the stuccoed walls were intended to be soundproof. Like many of the studios on property, MacDowell was winterized in the 1950s when the program began welcoming…

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