Michael Harrison

Michael Harrison was a composer who made extensive use of just intonation, or tuning based on pure harmonic ratios. He synthesized American minimalism with elements of North Indian classical music in long, meditative compositions and invented the "harmonic piano," which is specially tuned to play 24 notes per octave. His major compositions include From Ancient Worlds (New Albion, 1992), written for harmonic piano; Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation (Cantaloupe, 2007), a one-hour piano work named one of the best classical recordings of the year by the New York Times and Boston Globe; and Just Constellations (New Amsterdam, 2020), a vocal octet commissioned and recorded by Roomful of Teeth. Evening Light: Raga Cycle I (Cantaloupe, 2026) was co-composed with vocalist Ina Filip and released in the final weeks of Harrison's life.