October 23, 2006
Music professor Leta Miller to give talk
on Lou Harrison
Professor of music Leta Miller will give a talk titled Lou
Harrison: Musical Trailblazer on Thursday, October 26,
from 4 to 6 p.m. at McHenry Library's Special Collections. Miller
will share her research and writings on Harrison--one of Santa
Cruz County's most famous musical personalities--and his groundbreaking
contributions to 20th-century music.
Lou Harrison Photo: David Harsany
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Beyond studying with leading composers of the avant garde,
Harrison achieved fame for his distinctive blending of cultures--from
Chinese opera, Indonesian gamelan, and the music of Native Americans,
to modernist dissonant counterpoint. He is now lauded as an
imaginative pioneer for his integration of Asian and Western
musics, as well as for his work in the development of the percussion
ensemble, his use of found and invented instruments, and his
explorations of alternative tuning systems.
Miller is a musicologist and flutist whose most recent scholarship
has focused on 20th-century American music. She has coauthored
two books on Harrison--the first was published in 1998 by Oxford
University Press and the second--a retrospective study of his
life and works--was just issued by the University of Illinois
Press in 2006.