Born in Orange, New Jersey, Harbison was influenced by jazz at an early age, playing piano in a jazz band at the age of 11. As he began to study composition, Bach and his cantatas played a key role in his development. He studied at Harvard, then in Berlin and Princeton. Another important musical event in Harbison’s life was a summer spent in Santa Fe, observing rehearsals and performances of the complete Stravinsky operas.

Harbison became a professor at the Masschusetts Institute for Technology in 1969, serving as composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra during his professorship. After winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for The Flight Into Egypt, Harbison won the MacArthur Fellowship as well as the Heinz Award.

Chords derived from jazz as well as shifting tonal centers (such as those found in Britten and Stravinsky) and allusive background elements play major roles in Harbison’s songs and song cycles. Harbison also has an extensive number of instrumental pieces, merging eclectic elements from various stylistic periods into a cohesive and beautiful musical whole.

–Christie Finn