October 30, 1995 Contact: Barbara McKenna (408/459-2495)

BOOK-IN-PROGRESS ON COMPOSER LOU HARRISON RECEIVES NEH FUNDING

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Leta Miller and Fredric Lieberman, both professors of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have received a $51,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support their work on a book on composer Lou Harrison. In addition, Miller received a prestigious NEH summer stipend to work on the project last spring.

Harrison, 78, is widely recognized as one of America's most inventive contemporary composers. A resident of Aptos, California, since 1953, he has composed more than 100 works for both western and eastern instruments. The San Francisco Symphony has performed two of Harrison's works this fall--a commissioned piece to open the 1995 season and a symphony in October. Harrison is also an accomplished artist, poet, and calligrapher.

Although a great deal of Harrison's music has been published and recorded, a biography has yet to be written and only one analytical study of his music exists. Miller and Lieberman are collaborating to fill the void. According to Miller, "The book is in part biographical, but more importantly, it studies the ideas that have motivated Lou during his long creative life."

The two have conducted nearly thirty hours of interviews with Harrison and spoken with more than two dozen people who have known him during the last half century. Among the topics they will cover are the development of the percussion orchestra, instrument building, tuning and intonation systems, Asian music and the growth of the American gamelan orchestra, music and dance, politics and music, compositional processes, musical aesthetics, music criticism, and Harrison's contributions to poetry and visual arts.

The $51,000 grant will support travel expenses for additional interviews, supply purchases, and work by a graduate research assistant and an administrative assistant.

Miller is a musicologist and flutist who has researched and written on the music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. She is featured in numerous recordings of modern and Baroque music, including three recordings of works by Harrison.

Lieberman is an ethnomusicologist and a composer who has researched and written about a range of music from Chinese tonal to American pop. He has known Harrison since 1963, when, as a graduate student, he performed in the premiere of Harrison's "Pacifika Rondo" at the University of Hawaii.

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