Born in Portland, Oregon, Lou Harrison became a composer of the avant-garde. He studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both of whom greatly influenced Harrison's work and plunged him into the crosscurrents of modern music. He has composed for various instruments, including those for orchestra, chamber, and voice.
Harrison was one of the earliest adherents of a small group of American musicians who promoted the music of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varese, and Henry Cowell. During the 1960s Harrison sought new sources of sound production. As a result, he organized a percussion ensemble of multitudinous drums and such common noisemakers as coffee cans and flower pots. Harrison traveled to Japan and Korea in order to study modalities and rhythmic structure and has composed music for gamelan, an orchestra of Indonesian instruments.
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