Tyler Harrison- Composer, Pianist |
Tyler Harrison is a composition and piano student currently finishing up his bachelor's degree at the University of Montana in Missoula. Though born in Eugene, OR, he grew up in the south in Raleigh and Charlotte, NC, and now lives in Missoula studying. He began playing piano at age eight, and composing at age fifteen. As a composer, he has written works for solo piano, solo flute, solo cello, two-piano, string quartet, brass quintet, and two concertpieces for soloist and orchestra. As a pianist, he spends much of his efforts performing his own works, and has a passion for performing new compositions, though he is also well-versed in the standard repertoire. In his compositions, he is insistent in his belief that music must express to it's audience as definite and profound a meaning as possible, precisely as the composer intended it. It must have something so powerful to say, that if someone listens without getting the point, they must not have truly been there at all. He has, further, a passion for theory, and insists on being able to explain every aspect of his compositions, from the minute details of their technical construction to the nature of their often deeply personal subject matter. As far as influences, his taste is naturally for composers of Russian origin, though he bears the mark of the mid-century experimentalists and especially serialism, particularly Alban Berg. In addition to his musical life, he loves to read, excersize, kayak, and above all, spend time with friends.Tyler Harrison is a member of ASCAP, the Society of Composers Inc. (SCI), the American Music Center (AMC), and the American Composers Forum (ACF). His pages can be viewed at www.myspace.com/tylerjharrison, www.newmusicjukebox.org/composers/c_works.asp?ActorID=49087&composerid=39002 and www.composersforum.org/member_profile.cfm?oid=7070 along with excerpts of his music and complete recordings of his work. |
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Compositions | |||
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Nomine for Solo Violoncello and Chamber Orchestra |
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'Nomine' was originally begun in May of 2005 for solo cello and full orchestra, and was subsequently reduced for solo cello and chamber orchestra in the fall of the same year. Completed in eight months, it is approximately fifteen minutes and exactly one-hundred and eighty-one measures in length. Unlike any composition I have written prior, 'Nomine', while fundamentally a concertpiece for cello, is unusually eclectic in nature, and traverses a plethora of musical styles and idioms. Its musical purposes aside, 'Nomine' was originally conceived as a love song. The work as a whole is seialized so that every note of the composition was created and determined using only the letter sequence of the subject's full name. The title is Latin for 'name', or in the case of this work, 'on a sacred name'. Recorded Live April 2006: James Payne, Flute; Marilyn Cole, Oboe; Cassie Keogh, Clarinet; Alicia McLean, Bassoon; Jonathan Knutson, Trumpet; Thomas Beaty, Horn; Chad Reep, Trombone; Sarah Riebe, Percussion I; Eric Rokole, Percussion II; Violin I Leif Peterson, Elizabeth Kalafat; Violin II Ryan Berkshire, Elizabeth Magnotta; Viola Emily Morrison, Sara Mazur; Violoncello Samantha DeLuna, Marie Petit; Contrabass Hugh Healow; Christpher Hahn, Conductor; Lucas Poe-Kiser, Violoncello Solo. | |||
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Concertpiece for Piano and Orchestra |
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| Concertpiece for Piano and Orchestra.mp3 - complete | |||
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THE CONCERTPIECE FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA is a character study of the character Adrian Leverkuhn in Thomas Mann's 'Dr. Faustus'. My interest in the character comes from the fact that he is a composer. The character sells his soul to the devil in exchange for twenty-four years of inspiration, but loses his soul, his ability to love, and dies a horrific death (syphillitic paralysis). The work is presented as a single movement concerto where the piano, representing Leverkuhn, is slowly given over to the Devil by the music which surrounds him, the piano accompaniment or orchestra (the work is orchestrated). The work ends in a motivic set, essentially a multiplication of the twelve-tone concept attributed to Leverkuhn in Mann's work, where every instrument plays a different motive at a different pitch level simultaneously, repeating each motive as fast as possible. Recorded Live, December 2006: Tyler Harrison, Piano; Christopher Hahn, Piano. | |||
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Etude for the Ailing Mind |
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Etude for the Ailing Mind was written as a serious concert piece centered on a musical joke. The works' inspiration comes from my playing, which has often been described to me as passionate, but somewhat irate and bombastic. Though this is not necessarily the case now, two aspects of my early playing were especially apparent to me, namely my excessive head movement, facial expressions, and sitting as low to the piano as possible. The works' conception came to me in thinking that, if I am going to 'bang' my head in performance, I might as well bang it against the piano and make myself useful. The work was further written as a concert piece made to exploit the audiences love of extravagant performance. Most audience members today would rather come to see the excessive gestures of the eccentric performer than the music they have supposedly come to hear. Etude for the Ailing Mind easily fufills the desires of the concertgoer as a work that is just as enjoyable to listen to as to speculate. Recorded April 2005: Tyler Harrison, Piano. | |||
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Fantasy for Two Pianos |
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Fantasy for Two Pianos was originally conceived as a second movement for a three movement piano concerto, the Concertpiece for Solo Piano and Piano Four-Hands being conceived as the first movement. Both works are orchestrated, but a third movement has yet to be conceived. The work is basically a theme and variations on the chromatic melody stated at the beginning. The first section is very slow and reflective with short interruptions from the piano, and ending with a sub-section for solo piano. The second section adds more piano at a faster tempo, which anticipates the virtuosic piano solo at the end. The third section contrasts between a slower variation reminiscent of the beginning with a more light-hearted, joking variation, ending with a piano interlude. The fourth and final section ends with virtuosic passages in the piano, a short interlude, and an octave cadenza. Recorded Live March 2004: Tyler Harrison, Piano; Heidi Ames, Piano. | |||
©2005 by TylerHarrison Joyner
All Rights Reserved
TylerHarrison Joyner is a member of Society of Composers, Inc. SCI is dedicated to the promotion of composition, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.