Johana Harris

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johana Harris (born Mary Beula Aleta Duffey ; born December 31, 1912 in Ottawa ; † June 5, 1995 in Los Angeles ) was a Canadian pianist, composer and music teacher.

Life

Beula Duffey had lessons at the Ottawa Conservatory, first with Bertha LaVerde , and later with Harry Puddicombe . She graduated at the age of eleven and had her first solo appearance as "Ottawa's Wonder Child Pianist" in 1925 with works by Edvard Grieg , Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt as well as her own composition.

In the same year she went to New York with her family and took private lessons with Ernest Hutcheson , the director of the Juilliard School of Music . In 1927 she was accepted into the graduate program of the Juilliard School as a scholarship holder and now also studied singing, composition (with Rubin Goldmark ), counterpoint , chamber music and literature. During this time she appeared with Hutcheson on the program CBS Sunday . As Hutcheson's assistant, she became the youngest teacher the Juilliard School ever had.

From 1929 to 1933 she studied at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin , then she returned to the Juilliard School. Here she met the composer Roy Harris , who was thirteen years her senior and who also taught at the Juilliard School. Both married in 1936, Duffey took her husband's name and the first name Johana in honor of Johann Sebastian Bach .

In favor of her husband and her family, Johana Harris renounces an international career as a concert pianist. However, she continued to pursue an active career in the USA, where she appeared with works by Orlando Gibbons and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck , Johann Sebastian Bach, Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt and by contemporary composers such as Paul Hindemith , Arnold Schoenberg and Carlos Chávez Ramírez . Last but not least, she was an important interpreter of her husband's works, and Alberto Ginastera dedicated his Piano Sonata No. 1 to the Harris couple .

She has also appeared on radio and television and has made over 100 solo recordings on vinyl. She organized concerts with her husband, both founded the International String Congress in 1959 and promoted folk music in the USA. In addition, Harris worked as a teacher and was a talented composer and piano improviser herself.

Roy Harris died in 1979, and in 1982 Johana Harris married one of her students, the twenty-one year old pianist Jake Heggie , with whom she toured the United States as a piano duo. The couple later separated, Heggie went to the San Francisco Opera as composer in residence . Harris died of cancer in 1995 at the age of eighty-two. She had two sons and three daughters. Her son Daniel D. Harris became known as a guitarist and actor.

literature

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Betsy Schwarm: Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22 (Dedication to Johana and Roy Harris) in: Encyclopædia Britannica
personal data
SURNAME Harris, Johana
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duffey, Mary Beula Aleta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian pianist, composer and music educator
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Ottawa
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1995
Place of death los Angeles