Roy Harris was born near Chandler, Oklahoma on February 12, 1898. He
spent most of his childhood with his parents in rural Oklahoma. He became well acquainted
with the regular chores of working on a farm. Later he found employment as a truck driver,
a profession that sustained him for a number of years, through his college days at the
University of California and while he was studying composition in Los Angeles with another
American composer, Arthur Farwell. Apparently Farwell
(see letter above "Dear Friend Arthur...") had a great influence on
Harris' early direction as a composer. It was Farwell who encouraged Harris to seek a
unique, personal style of composition.
Harris's first attempts as a composer attracted little interest, but
in 1925, Harris won first prize for his Andante for Strings. The contest had been
sponsored by the New York Philharmonic, so Harris soon left California for New York. While
in New York, he met yet another American composer, Aaron Copland, who encouraged Harris to
go to France and study with Nadia Boulanger as had he. Harris did so and while in France
wrote a Concerto for piano, clarinet, and string quartet that immediately brought him
acclaim as one of the brightest American composers.
Harris returned to California in 1930 and composed several chamber
and orchestral works. The new composition was markedly American, described by most critics
as containing "broad sweeping melodic lines." He used American folk music and
hymns melodies, although his settings included dissonant chords and unusual rhythms.
A huge break came for Harris in 1933 when the respected Russian
conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Harris to write his first symphony. He would
eventually write 15 symphonies, but it was his Symphony No. 3, which Koussevitzky premiered
in 1939, that earned Harris his greatest reputation. The Third Symphony has been called
the greatest American symphony. Some other works from this period include the overture When
Johnny Comes Marching Home, the Piano Quintet, the Folk-Song Symphony,
and the Fifth Symphony.
Harris wrote over 200 works and for those he received many honors.
Among them were the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal, a Naumburg Award for his Symphony
No. 7, election to the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters, and the title
of Composer Laureate of the State of California. Additionally, he taught at Princeton,
Cornell, Peabody College for Teachers, Indiana University, and UCLA. Two of his most
prominent students were William Schuman and Peter
"P.D.Q. Bach" Schickele. Harris died in Santa Monica, California on October 1,
1979.
Rev. 07/20/2004
