Press

“Harrison gives the piano a versatility of sound never heard before, ranging from harp to guitar to sitar.”

“Built of long, slow notes over ambient sounds, it created a mesmerizing meditative soundspace and a palpable sense of expectation.”

“One long intoxication… As soon as the first notes sound, you know: the piano sounds very different from what we are used to. In a certain way more natural, more organic, whereby the sound resembles bells and clocks… when he stops, we hear those overtones fade out very slowly. A wonderful moment.”

“The best of both worlds: the delectable just-tuned piano sound with the ability of harmonic motion found in traditional classical works.”

“A monumental work… the pulsing, gamelan-like waves Harrison conjures from his customized 'harmonic piano' have a hypnotic effect… Revelation sounds like a lullaby that would put only a mad scientist to sleep.”

“Long, sustained pitches — combined with minimal vibrato and keenly accurate intonation — produced a pleasing minimalist drone, for an otherworldly excursion into the farthest reaches of the string universe.”

“The word 'unique' is overused in the contemporary music world. But in the case of composer Michael Harrison and cellist Maya Beiser, the descriptor is deserved.”

“If the walls of an ancient European cathedral or Middle Eastern monastery could sing, this is what you'd hear.”

“As Michael Harrison has pressed further into the map of his musical life, something magical has happened. The map is folding in on itself, with the seemingly distant now adjacent regions overlapping, simple lines becoming multi-dimensional.”

“Michael Harrison's Just Constellations explored the opposite of reckless heterogeneity. Influenced by seminal minimalist La Monte Young, the music isn't repetitive so much as it settles onto a single chord and evolves so subtly it's like watching a landscape in changing light.”

“Jaunpuri is a mesmerizing piece, a nocturnal raga of Hindustani classical music, animated by an irresistible wave movement… A wonder! Hijaz Prelude… can be considered as forming a diptych with the previous, yet it is more internalized and structured on more audible loops. A second wonder!”

“This hour-plus trance-inducing solo piano work is a vast experiment in 'pure intonation.' Using an original tuning for the piano, Harrison makes it hum and vibrate in ways that sound both ancient and modern.”

“An inventive composer whose works contain echoes of contemporary and Oriental music all in the service of an engaging melodic gift.”

“The tuning system and modified strings transform the piano's sound, creating a strangely 'Eastern' timbre, with sustained overtones.”

“Revelation is one of the first great musical pieces of the 21st century.”

“If there really is a music of the spheres, the sound of a fundamental harmony in the universe, it has to be Just Ancient Loops… it propels viewers through time and space, landing them in the present, elated.”

“You play the vividly specific, spine-chilling intervals on Harrison's 'just' piano, and then everything sounds so bland and washed-out and arbitrary and disappointing on the conventionally tuned one.”

“…the kind of finely shaded spectrum we might achieve in the third millennium.”

“Harrison will bring the beauty of just intonation to all lands.”

“Harrison has perfected a way of playing in just intonation at the piano… such celestial resonance that it captures your attention from the first note.”

“Jaunpuri is based on a traditional Indian raga, but shaped with Western compositional notation, structures, and harmony. An embellished piano melody twirls and spins through a buzzing tabla and tanpura trance, building in intensity until the circling rhythmic cycles spin out into a breathtaking rhapsody.”

“The results are gorgeous; sonorous long tones glide in ever shifting harmonic combinations, each of which hang patiently in the air.”

“"Harp of Yaman" showcases Harrison's skills as a player, in the process confirming that the empty space that seems to envelop these compositions is due to deliberate self-imposed limitations and creative restraint.”

“The Bang on a Can Marathon is always good for a spectacle or two. The day's glitziest work was Michael Harrison's Just Ancient Loops, which cellist Maya Beiser performed along with some 20 electronic versions of herself and accompanying video work by Bill Morrison.”

“Lovely and hypnotic. Michael Harrison's Harmonic Constellations pairs the live violin with a prerecorded part of both violin tracks and sine-tones… The result, over its 20-plus minutes, is lovely and hypnotic.”

“Glorious clouds of harmonics, …divine thunder, angel choirs, celestial bells.”

“It is mesmerizing! The tuning is certainly a revelation.”

“…an exalting, almost breathless new plane… Its power builds with unstoppable force, deepening and expanding with irresistible energy, and by the climax Beiser was filling the hall with a vast ecstatic ocean of sound.”

“The intelligent discrimination with which he approaches his work is something that I have heard only in a tiny handful of classical recordings starting with Glenn Gould.”

“Pulling it off was a serious challenge requiring discipline, a willingness to take risks, and real grit. The result was simply exhilarating.”

“must-hear album for fans of a cappella music.”

“Harrison is bound to profoundly influence the musicians of his generation.”

“Harrison is 'like a magician setting up a trick.' He transforms overtones, welcomes their clashes, and keeps his audience surprised and thoroughly captivated, taking them on a tour of beautiful and exotic 'non-Euclidean musical worlds.'”

“an off-ramp from reality... precisely blended singing and swirling 'halos' of reverberant sound.”

“'The Opening Constellation' section proved particularly arresting, a celestial soundscape of gorgeous harmonies that became even more alluringly ambiguous in the ensuing 'Romantic Constellation.' In the concluding 'Acoustic Constellations,' the notes rang out like a jubilantly microtonal choir of bells.”