AMC 2000 Letters of Distinction: John Harbison

John Harbison is one of America's most prominent composers as well as a conductor and a crusader for younger composers. Among his principal works are three operas, three symphonies, three string quartets, and the 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning cantata The Flight Into Egypt. The Metropolitan Opera commissioned his most recent opera, The Great Gatsby, which premiered on December 20, 1999. Published exclusively by Associated Music Publishers, Harbison's music is distinguished by its exceptional resourcefulness and expressive range embracing jazz along with pre-classical forms, graceful tonality, and rigorous atonal methods. More than 30 of his compositions have been recorded. Harbison has been Composer-In-Residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Tanglewood, Marlboro, and Santa Fe Chamber festivals. Former music director of Boston's Cantata Singers, Harbison has also conducted the Boston Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He is the Killian Award Lecturer at MIT and has also taught at CalArts, Duke University, Boston University, and is currently on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival. Harbison serves on the boards of directors of the American Academy in Rome, the Copland Fund (as President), and the Koussevitzky Foundation, as well as juries of the Fromm Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a recipient of the Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities (1998), a MacArthur Fellowship (1989) and the Kennedy Center Friedheim First Prize (1980).