Ross Talbot Harris QSM (born 1 August 1945) is a New Zealand composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator.
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. [1]
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. [2] [3] 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. [1] He achieved significant critical attention for his 1984 opera Waituhi: Te Ora O Te Whanau, the first opera created in the Māori language, [1] and in the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public services. [4]
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. [1]
As an instrumentalist, Harris has played French horn in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and accordion in the Wellington klezmer group The Kugels. [5] He has also used many electro-acoustic instruments in his work with the Free Radicals. [1]
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. [6]
The music of New Zealand has been influenced by a number of traditions, including Māori music, the music introduced by European settlers during the nineteenth century, and a variety of styles imported during the twentieth century, including blues, jazz, country, rock and roll, reggae, and hip hop, with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation.
Douglas Gordon Lilburn was a New Zealand composer.
John Stanley Body was a New Zealand composer, ethnomusicologist, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations. A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as the promotion of New Zealand music within the country and abroad.
RNZ Concert is a publicly funded non-commercial New Zealand FM fine music radio network. Radio New Zealand owns the network and operates it from its Wellington headquarters. The network's playlist of classical, jazz, contemporary, and world music includes recordings by local musicians and composers. Around 15 percent of its airtime features live concerts, orchestral performances, operas, interviews, features, and specialty music programs, many of them recorded locally.
Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead is a New Zealand composer. She is of Māori Ngāi Te Rangi descent. Her Māori heritage has been an important influence on her composing.
John Psathas, is a New Zealand Greek composer. He has works in the repertoire of such high-profile musicians as Evelyn Glennie, Michael Houstoun, Michael Brecker, Joshua Redman and the New Juilliard Ensemble, and is one of New Zealand's most frequently performed composers. He has established an international profile and receives regular commissions from organisations in New Zealand and overseas.
Gareth Vincent Farr is a New Zealand composer and percussionist. He has released a number of classical CDs and composed a number of works performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) and Royal New Zealand Ballet. He has also performed in drag under the name Lilith LaCroix in a show called Drumdrag and has also released a CD under that name.
The Auckland Philharmonia is a symphony orchestra based in Auckland, New Zealand. Its principal concert venue is the Auckland Town Hall, and it is also the accompanying ensemble for Auckland stage performances by New Zealand Opera and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. The Auckland Philharmonia's patrons are Dame Catherine Tizard, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Rosanne Meo and Barbara Glaser.
The Drysdale Overture of 1937 is among the earliest works for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn.
Aotearoa is a concert overture written for orchestra by New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn in 1940. The overture is the first of three early works by Lilburn which centre on the theme of national identity; the other two are Landfall in Unknown Seas (1942), for narrator and orchestra, and the tone poem A Song of Islands (1946).
David Blair Hamilton is a New Zealand composer and teacher.
Lyell Richard Cresswell was a New Zealand composer of contemporary classical music. He was the younger brother of philosopher Max Cresswell. Cresswell studied in Wellington, Toronto, Aberdeen and Utrecht and lived and worked in Edinburgh from 1985 on. Although he lived more than half his life away from New Zealand, he regarded himself as a New Zealander.
Andrew Perkins is a New Zealand composer, choral conductor and teacher. He has had a number of works recorded and performed internationally.
Eve de Castro-Robinson is a New Zealand composer, professor and graphic designer. Her compositions include orchestral, vocal, chamber and electroacoustic works. She studied at the University of Auckland, where in 1991 she became the first person to receive a DMus from the University. She is Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Auckland.
Helen Bowater is a New Zealand composer. She was born in Wellington into a musical family, and studied piano and violin with Gwyneth Brown. In 1982 she graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in music history and ethnomusicology from Victoria University of Wellington. She continued her studies in electroacoustic music with Ross Harris and in composition with Jack Body.
Atoll Records is a New Zealand record label dedicated to classical, historical and contemporary music.
Kenneth Young is a composer, conductor, radio presenter and lecturer in composition, conducting and orchestration at the New Zealand School of Music, Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington. As a composer, Young has had works commissioned by New Zealand and Australian orchestras and arts organisations including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra New Zealand International Arts Festival and Chamber Music New Zealand. He works as a freelance composer and is fully represented by SOUNZ: The Centre for New Zealand Music. In 1976, Young became the principal tuba for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and first conducted the orchestra in 1985 becoming Conductor in Residence in 1993. In 2001, he resigned from the orchestra to become a full-time conductor, composer and recording artist for orchestras in New Zealand and Australia, as well as engagements in Japan and the United Kingdom. He is well known for his interpretation of Romantic, 20th Century, New Zealand and Australian orchestral repertoire and in 2012 conducted both the winning album, Angel at Ahipara and finalist album, Releasing the Angel, for Best Classical Album at the New Zealand Music Awards. Young has been recorded by EMI, Atoll Records, Continuum, Trust Records, ABC Classics and Naxos and is a frequent presenter on RESOUND, Radio New Zealand Concert introducing and contextualising work from the RNZ archives. In 2004 was awarded the Lilburn Trust Citation in Recognition of Outstanding Services to New Zealand Music.
Leonie Joyce Holmes is a New Zealand composer and lecturer at the University of Auckland with an interest in music education.
Ariana Rahera Tikao is a New Zealand singer, musician and author. Her works explore her identity as a Kāi Tahu woman and her music often utilises taonga pūoro. Notably, she co-composed the first concerto for taonga pūoro in 2015. She has released three solo albums and collaborated with a number of other musicians. She was a recipient of an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2020.
Hamish John McKeich is a New Zealand bassoon player and conductor. He is principal conductor in residence of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.