Raga Cycle
24-Hours of Music Moving through Morning, Day, Evening, and Night
Raga Cycle is Michael Harrison's ambitious recording project, featuring planned collaborations with a range of musicians from around the world, including Roomful of Teeth, Vijay Iyer, Laraaji, Bergamot Quartet, Dhrupad vocalist Ina Filip, bassist Hansford Rowe, tabla player Mir Naqibul Islam, among others. The project is produced by composer Elliot Cole and will be released on Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe Music label. The music will also be the score to Academy Award nominee Bill Morrison’s multimedia project 24 Hours @ Once.
Michael is known as an important composer-pianist in the Western classical tradition who has made special contributions to music theory of pure tuning (just intonation). For over 45 years he has also been a devoted student, practitioner and teacher of Indian classical music, adapting the ancient melodic science of raga to the piano. Raga Cycle is the capstone of this lifetime of work – Michael’s definitive statement from a place of depth in both traditions that very few people have ever achieved. His unique musical voice is eloquent, profound, and fresh to modern audience. Raga cycle is a rare accomplishment that is historically important to document.
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Ragas are structures for melodic improvisation that capture a specific attitude, mood, and spiritual reality. In India they have been transmitted from teacher to student in arguably the oldest continuous aural tradition of classical music in the world. Michael continues the lineage that traces its roots to the 13th century, received from masters Pandit Pran Nath (alongside Terry Riley and La Monte Young) and Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan. His approach to raga on the piano faithfully continues their essence while unfolding new possibilities of harmony, texture, and resonance.
Each raga is meant to be performed at a certain time of day. Raga Cycle will ultimately be an entire day of raga: 24 hours of music that moves through morning, day, evening, and night.
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