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MIT Salutes Institute Professor John Harbison's 70th birthday

Cambridge, MA...This spring, the Music and Theater Arts Section at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will celebrate and honor one of the most prestigious members of its faculty--composer John Harbison--with a concert and other tributes to mark his 70th birthday. The celebration of composers' significant anniversaries, which frequently includes talks, panel discussions and receptions surrounding a major concert of the composer's music, is a well-known and frequently observed tradition in the music world.  

The Harbison celebration concert will take place at 8 p.m., Friday, April 24, in Kresge Auditorium and will offer the opportunity to sample some of his vocal and instrumental chamber works performed by professional friends and colleagues. Admission is free and the public is invited.  

Professor Harbison's teaching and music have for years enriched the students from all areas of the MIT music program. This spring, student ensembles will offer their own tributes to the composer by programming some of his works on their concerts.

MIT ENSEMBLES ALSO CELEBRATE HARBISON

HARBISON CELEBRATION CONCERT

John Harbison's music is distinguished by its exceptional resourcefulness and expressive range. He is considered "original, varied, and absorbing -- relatively easy for audiences to grasp and yet formal and complex enough to hold our interest through repeated hearings -- his style boasts both lucidity and logic" (Fanfare). Harbison's music is published exclusively by Associated Music Publishers. A complete works list can be found at www.schirmer.com.

Opening the program at the celebration concert on April 24 is the premiere of the French Horn Suite featuring MIT Lecturer Jean Rife, who commissioned the work, and her professional colleagues John Boden, Ken Pope and Peter Solomon. The composer's notes explain that the suite derives its character and humor from antiphonal conversations between horn pairs that produce responses that are "close but no cigar."

The light hearted horn quartet will in contrast be followed by the second performance of "A Clear Midnight" (a cantata for five soloists and strings with texts by Walt Whitman) featuring Susan Consoli (soprano), Matt Anderson (tenor), Ryan Turner (tenor), Sumner Thompson (bass), Douglas Raymond Williams (bass), and a string ensemble of Boston professional musicians. "A Clear Midnight" was recently commissioned by The Georgina Joshi Foundation in memory of Chris Carducci, Garth Eppley, Georgina Joshi, Zachary Novak, and Robert Samels, five Indiana University voice students who died in a single-engine Cessna plane crash on April 20, 2006 on a return flight from a rehearsal north of Indiana University. "This event was a devastating tragedy for the friends and families of these gifted musicians, and for the entire community at Indiana University" where the work will be premiered on March 29, 2009, wrote Harbison in his program note.

The first half of the concert program will conclude with "Cucaraccia and Fugue" a viola quartet featuring MIT Professors John Harbison and Marcus Thompson, and Rice University Professors James Dunham and Ivo-Jan van der Werff.

Following intermission will be the first Boston performance of "Crane Sightings" (Eclogue for solo violin and strings) featuring violinist Rose Mary Harbison along with a string quintet of Boston professional musicians. The piece, according to the composer, "celebrates the persistence of [cranes], as they inhabit less and less of our planet with undiminished dignity."

The program will end with "Umbrian Landscape with Saint," a sinfonietta with chorus whose optional chorus will be performed by the MIT Chamber Chorus, William Cutter, music director, and by a 15-piece ensemble of Boston's finest professional musicians. Composed in Umbria for the Chicago Chamber Musicians the work features a landscape prelude, a set of variations consisting of ten panels from Giotto's cycle of the life of St. Francis, and a meditation on St. Francis ("Hymn to All Created Things").

HARBISON'S BACKGROUND

Premieres and commissions, awards and distinctions are numerous on John Harbison's vitae. In addition to many other prizes, he has received the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities. Harbison has composed music for most of this country's premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera (for whom he wrote "The Great Gatsby"), New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.   His works include four string quartets, five symphonies, a ballet, three operas, and numerous chamber and choral works, over 60 of which have been recorded on leading record labels.

John Harbison is more than a world-renowned composer, he is a highly regarded member of the music faculty and an Institute Professor at MIT.

By virtue of their appointment Institute Professors are not obligated to teach, which gives them the latitude to pursue their work. Since his appointment to Institute Professor in 1995, however, John Harbison has never stopped teaching, and he continues to teach and coach students in the Chamber Music Society (21M445) to this day.

In addition to teaching at MIT, conducting major orchestras, and composing, Harbison is acting artistic director of Emmanuel Music here in Boston, an organization founded by the late Craig Smith primarily for the performance of Sacred Cantatas by J.S. Bach.  

Bach's music has been an important influence in Harbison's work, and his music has sometimes been described as "Bachian." Jazz is another strong influence in his compositional style and an important part of his musical life. His affinity for jazz often shows up in the harmonies and rhythms of his concert music too.

In recent years Harbison has revived his career as a jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.   Founder-leader of the Harbison Heptet and sideman in many other groups, playing with Tom Artin, Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, Jo Jones, and Edmund Hall (1952-1963), he took a jazz "sabbatical" for four decades, returning in 2003 to found the Token Creek jazz ensemble. The quartet and guests perform exclusively for the annual Token Creek Festival in Wisconsin.

Harbison was born in Orange, New Jersey, on December 20, 1938 into a musical family. He was improvising on the piano at five years of age and by the age of 12 had started a jazz band. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard University and earned an MFA from Princeton. Following completion of a junior fellowship at Harvard, Harbison joined the faculty at MIT where, in 1984, he was named Class of 1949 Professor of Music; in 1994, Killian Award Lecturer in recognition of "extraordinary professional accomplishments;" and in 1995, Institute Professor.

The title of Institute Professor is reserved for those few individuals who have "demonstrated exceptional distinction by a combination of leadership, accomplishment and service in the scholarly, educational and general intellectual life of the Institute or wider academic community," according to MIT's Policies and Procedures manual. It is the highest rank and honor awarded by the MIT faculty and administration. Fourteen members of the MIT faculty currently hold the distinction of Institute Professorships:

* Emilio Bizzi, Brain & Cognitive Science
* John M. Deutch, Chemistry
* Peter Diamond, Economics
* Ann Graybiel, Brain and Cognitive Sciences
* John Harbison, Music and Theater Arts
* Robert Langer, Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering
* Barbara Liskov, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
* John D. C. Little, Management Science
* Thomas Magnanti, Management Science and Electrical Engineering
* Joel Moses, Computer Science & Engineering
* Phillip Sharp, Biology
* Isadore Manuel Singer, Mathematics
* Daniel I. C. Wang, Chemical Engineering
* Sheila Widnall, Aeronautics & Astronautics