Lou Harrison
A composer who built his own gamelan orchestras with his partner Bill Colvig – and wrote one of the first operas with an openly gay theme.
Lou Harrison grew up in Oregon and California and studied with the composer Henry Cowell, who introduced him to the music of Asia, and later with Arnold Schoenberg. In New York in the 1940s he worked as a music critic and championed the music of Charles Ives.
He became one of the pioneers of world music in the West. Fascinated by the music of Java and Bali, he composed for percussion instruments, for Javanese gamelan and in just intonation instead of the usual tuning. He also wrote in Esperanto, the international language, and was a committed pacifist.
From 1967 he lived with the electrician and instrument builder Bill Colvig in Aptos, California. Together they built their own American gamelan orchestras out of aluminium tubes, tin cans and other materials. They remained together until Colvig’s death in 2000. Harrison’s puppet opera “Young Caesar” (1971) told of the love between the young Julius Caesar and King Nicomedes – one of the first operas with an openly gay theme.
Harrison died in 2003, aged 85, on his way to a festival of his music in Ohio.