Johana Harris (31 December 1912 – 5 June 1995) was a Canadian

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, and

music educator Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as elementary or secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a research area in which scholars do origina ...

. She had highly successful career as a concert pianist, making numerous recordings and appearing as a soloist with almost every major American symphony orchestra. She made over 100 solo recordings, working with such labels as Columbia,

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

Capitol Capitol, capitols or The Capitol may refer to: Places and buildings Legislative building * United States Capitol, in Washington, D.C. * National Capitol of Colombia, in Bogotá * Palacio Federal Legislativo, in Caracas, Venezuela * National Ca ...

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

and

Contemporary Records Contemporary Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Lester Koenig in Los Angeles in 1951. Contemporary produced music from a variety of jazz styles and players. West Coast players Contemporary became identified with a style of ja ...

. She also performed on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

s of several Hollywood films and television productions. She was married to composers

Roy Harris Roy Ellsworth Harris (February 12, 1898 – October 1, 1979) was an American composer. He wrote music on American subjects, and is best known for his Symphony No. 3. Life Harris was born in Chandler, Oklahoma on February 12, 1898. His ancestry ...

(died 1979) and

Jake Heggie Jake Heggie (born March 31, 1961)Slonimsky, Nicholas; Kuhn, Laura; ed. (2001). Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians Volume 3: Haar-Levi'. New York: Schirmer Books. pp. 1509–1510. . is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestra ...

(married 1982). She performed widely with both men in duo piano concerts and was considered to have had a particularly profound effect on Roy Harris's work as a composer.Johana Harris at

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

, accessed 26 August 2019

Life

Born Beula Duffey in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

, she was a

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

and began her career as a concert pianist at the age of 8. At that time she had already been composing for some years and performed her own works along with works from the standard piano repertoire. She soon after began studying with Bertha Laverde Worden and

Harry Puddicombe Harry Puddicombe (c. 14 June 1870 – 7 June 1953) was a Canadian composer, pianist, and music educator. He is best remembered for his work as a teacher, notably founding the Canadian Conservatory of Music in 1902 and serving as its director fo ...

at the Canadian Conservatory of Music. In 1923 she turned down a full scholarship to the Hambourg Conservatory in Toronto, choosing instead to study with

Ernest Hutcheson Ernest Hutcheson (20 July 1871 – 9 February 1951) was an Australian pianist, composer and teacher. Biography Hutcheson was born in Melbourne, and toured there as a child prodigy at the age of five. He later travelled to Leipzig and entere ...

in New York City at the urging of Puddicombe. Harris entered the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

in 1925 where she was concurrently a student and faculty member. She was appointed Hutcheson's teaching assistant and at 17 was the youngest faculty member in Juilliard history. She earned a scholarship there in 1927. At Juilliard she studied music composition with

Rubin Goldmark Rubin Goldmark (August 15, 1872 – March 6, 1936) was an American composer, pianist, and educator.Perlis, ''New Grove Dictionary of American Music'', v. II, p. 239 Although in his time he was an often-performed American nationalist composer, his ...

and continued her piano studies with Hutcheson. She went on to teach on the faculties of 17 other universities and conservatories, most notably working on the faculty at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

from 1969 to 1993. In 1987 she was awarded UCLA's Distinguished Lecturer Award. In 1936 Harris married composer

. It was he who convinced her to change her name to Johana after J.S. Bach. ''

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

'' states, "Johana and Roy Harris were a ''tour de force'' in American music. Their collaboration has been compared to that of Robert and Clara Schumann. The Harrises organized concerts, adjudicated at festivals, and in 1959 founded the International String Congress. They promoted American folksong by including folksongs in their concerts and broadcasts." Johana's biographer

Louise Spizizen Louise Fleur Meyers Schlesinger Spizizen (August 24, 1928 - July 2, 2010) was an American composer, critic, harpsichordist/pianist, and singer. She is best remembered today for her research and controversial claim that pianist Johana Harris actuall ...

believed that Johana had composed parts of music published under Roy Harris' name. The couple had three daughters, Patricia, Maureen and Lane, as well as two sons, Shaun and Dan, who performed with

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (WCPAEB) was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group created music that possessed an eerie, and at times sinister atmosphere, and contained material that ...

, a Los Angeles-based

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

band of the late 1960s. She died on 5 June 1995, at her home in Los Angeles. She was 82.

External links

Interview with Johana Harris and Roy Harris
in 1976 at

California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge), is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. With a total enrollment of 36,848 students (as of Fall 2024), it has the ...

(by Norman Tanis)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Johana 1912 births 1995 deaths 20th-century Canadian classical composers Canadian Conservatory of Music alumni Juilliard School alumni Juilliard School faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty Capitol Records artists Columbia Records artists RCA Victor artists MGM Records artists Contemporary Records artists 20th-century Canadian classical pianists Canadian women classical composers Canadian women music educators Canadian women classical pianists 20th-century Canadian women composers Canadian women composers 20th-century Canadian women pianists