Lou Harrison
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Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to
Portrait of a young Harrison at the piano, c. early 1940s
Lou (left) and Bill Harrison (right), c. early 1920s
Harrison considered Henry Cowell (pictured) his greatest musical inspiration and one of his closest friends
Harrison developed a deep interest in the traditional gamelan ensembles of southern Indonesia (pictured)
Harry Partch
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Harry Partch was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-centur
Lou Harrison
…instruments with his partner, William Colvig, who are now both considered founders of the American gamelan movement and world music; along with composers Harry Partch and Claude Vivier, and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee. The majority of Harrison's works and custom instruments are written for just intonation rather…
c. 1952
Partch's parents, Virgil and Jennie (1888).
Partch in 1919
Partch (center) directing four college students in rehearsal