Ross Harris (composer)
{{Short description|New Zealand composer and musician}}
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{{Use New Zealand English|date=December 2022}}
Ross Talbot Harris {{post-nominals|country=NZL|QSM|size=85%}} (born 1 August 1945) is a New Zealand composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator.
Life and career
Born in Amberley, Harris was educated at the University of Canterbury before studying with Douglas Lilburn at Victoria University of Wellington. He then succeeded Lilburn as the professor of electro-acoustic music at Victoria, a position he maintained for over thirty years.{{Cite Grove |title=Harris, Ross (Talbot) |first=John |last=Young |id=40559}}
A composer with wide interests, Harris's compositions have spanned classical music works including operas, chamber music and seven symphonies, to electro-acoustic music, jazz, and rock music.{{cite web |title=Ross Harris – Composer |work=SOUNZ |publisher=Centre for New Zealand Music Trust |publication-place=Wellington |url=https://sounz.org.nz/contributors/1049 |access-date=19 June 2023 }}{{Cite web |title=Magnificent Seven |work=Phil News |publisher=Auckland Philharmonia |date=2023 |url= https://www.apo.co.nz/about/news-stories/magnificent-seven-phil-news/ |access-date=16 January 2024 }} He is a founding member of the Wellington-based band Free Radicals whose pioneering experiments in electro-acoustic music in the 1980s influenced the development of electronica in the 1990s. He achieved significant critical attention for his 1984 opera Waituhi: Te Ora O Te Whanau, the first opera created in the Māori language, and in the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public services.{{London Gazette |issue=50553 |date=14 June 1986 |page=33 |supp=3}}
Harris was the resident composer of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in 2005 and 2006; during which time he composed three symphonies for that orchestra. In 2014 he was awarded the Laureate Award by Arts Foundation of New Zealand. He has won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award from the Australasian Performing Right Association five times.
As an instrumentalist, Harris has played French horn in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and accordion in the Wellington klezmer group The Kugels.{{Cite web |date=2022-10-21 |title=Melding Klezmer with classical - composer Ross Harris |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/2018863679/melding-klezmer-with-classical-composer-ross-harris |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=RNZ |language=en-nz}} He has also used many electro-acoustic instruments in his work with the Free Radicals.
In 2022 he delivered the ninth Lilburn Lecture with a lecture entitled The Endless Search for the Next Note: An Outline of a Composing Life from an Unlikely Beginning to an Unlikely Present.{{Cite web |date=2022-11-10 |title=2022 Lilburn Lecture: Ross Harris |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/appointment/audio/2018866319/2022-lilburn-lecture-ross-harris |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=RNZ |language=en-nz}}
References
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External links
- Former official website ([https://web.archive.org/web/20161225130233/http://www.rossharris.co.nz/ last archived December 2016])
- The Kugels ([https://the-kugels-klezmer.com/ the band's website])
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Category:20th-century accordionists
Category:21st-century accordionists
Category:People from Amberley, New Zealand
Category:University of Canterbury alumni
Category:New Zealand composers
Category:Classical horn players
Category:Recipients of the Queen's Service Medal
Category:Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Category:Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington