Harrison Highlights

• Upon arriving in San Francisco in 1934, Lou quickly embarked on a tireless career of music, dance, art, calligraphy, poetry...and, of course, composing. Enrolling in Henry Cowell's class "Music of the Peoples of the World", Lou began a deep association with that composer which is still evident in his music and words.
• Correspondence from the 30's indicates a sort of tug-of-war between Lou's interest in music and poetry which was thankfully resolved in his scripting of lyric and his work with many writers and poets such as Elsa Gidlow, James Broughton, Robert Gordon and Jonathan Williams.
• It was through Henry Cowell that Lou first met John Cage and together they produced many percussion concerts and music for dance concerts. Under the suggestion of Cowell, Lou and John foraged for different sound making "instruments" and began utilizing flower pots, brake drums, tin sheets, and metal pipes. Lou began teaching at Mills College in 1936 and continued to write for dance programs, plays, and ballets. In 1943 he traveled to Los Angeles where he worked as a dance accompanist as well as teaching Laban dance notation. It was here that Lou had the opportunity to study with Arnold Schoenberg.
• Following Los Angeles, Lou lived and worked in New York, writing music critique for the Herald Tribune, composing works and continuing his associations with Cowell, Cage, Virgil Thomson, Alan Hovhannes, Remy Charlip and many others.
• By 1946 Lou had prepared the score of Charles Ives Symphony No. 3 for performance and conducted its premiere which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
• In 1954, after a residency at Black Mountain College (during which he wrote his prize winning opera " Rapunzel") Lou returned to the West Coast and settled in Aptos overlooking Monterey Bay.
• In 1960, Mr. Harrison attended the East-West Music Conference in Tokyo and through a Rockefeller grant was allowed to return and study and teach. Through his work he was bestowed an endorsement by the Korean Government to teach Piri in the United States. He has since traveled extensively in South-East Asia studying, teaching and performing.
• Among numerous awards and grants received are those of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Fellowships, Rockefeller Fellowships, Distinguished Achiement Award, American Music Center and the Fromm Foundation.
• Residencies for teaching and composing include Reed College, University of Hawaii, Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Music Academy of Basal, the Mozart Academy in the Czeck Republic, and others.
• Major performances of Mr. Harrison's work have been held in San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, Philidelphia, Sapporo, Korea, Indonesia, Amsterdam, Bonn, Stuttgart, and so on.
• Lou and his partner William Colvig have designed and built two Javanese style gamelan (in use at San Jose State University and Mills College) as well as the "Old Grand-dad" of American Gamelans finished in 1970 for the premiere performance of Lou's Buddhist liturgical work "La Koro Sutro". Toured from Sapporo to Moab, this piece was performed in June of 1995 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
• Other major performances of 1995 include the "Suite for Cello and Harp" by the Oakland ballet for Remy Charlip's "Ludwig and Lou", and the joyful "Parade for MTT" which opened the San Francisco Symphony season celebrating the inaguration of director Michael Tilson Thomas. Lou's Third Symphony will also be performed this season with guest conductor Dennis Russell Davies. Mr. Davies, with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, will present the "New First Suite for Strings" in November.