Michael Harrison

Composer and pianist Michael Harrison was a protege of the great American minimalist composer La Monte Young, and a disciple of the late Pandit Pran Nath. Through his expertise in Indian ragas and rhythmic cycles, and his adaptation of Phythagorean principles of harmonic resonance to create new tunings and scales, he composed Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation, which was released on Bang on a Can's Cantaloupe Music label in October 2007.

He shares a passion for Indian music with composer Terry Riley, with whom he has performed as a vocalist and on tambur in numerous concerts and trips to India. He has performed at venues such as Lincoln Center, the United Nations, and Symphony Space, and at festivals around the world. Michael describes the idea of Revelation as such: "As the Gregorian calender compromises the length of the twelve lunar cycles to fit neatly into a solar cycle, the traditional Western tuning also compromises the purity of each interval to create 12 equally spaced notes. The tuning for Revelation embraces ancient principles of time, space, and music to create a matrix of tones that line up and don't line up simultaneously. Revelation uses the gaps (or 'celestial commas') between intervals that are the natural result of tuning in pure intonation to create 'tone clouds' of pulsating harmonic resonance."

[from the Wordless Music Series program]