Johana Harris - Johana Harris plays Roy Harris (1999)

The performances on this CD by legendary pianist Johana Harris are taken from recording sessions carried out during the late summer and early fall of 1987 at the Hollywood-based Crystal Studios of engineer-producer, Andrew Berliner. Over a period of three months the 74-year-old Johana committed to tape more than a hundred works, covering a time span of some five centuries, by thirty-five composers, to which were added a pair of extended improvisation sequences (one of her long time specialties). The anthology as a whole was aimed at showcasing both the extent of her repertoire and her remarkable artistry which had flowered over a period of some sixty years. It was also a reflection of Johana’s discriminating taste and very personal approach to programming. All of the music meant a great deal to her though at the sessions she chose to record only particular movements of works. Remarkably, the ambitious project was begun without a particular label in mind for release. MCA Classics showed interest in a CD release of the series but got only as far as bringing out twenty-eight tracks of Bach and Debussy. The resulting two CDs, however, enjoyed a regrettably short catalogue life for hardly six months following their release, MCA opted out of the classical music field.

To represent 20th century music of the Western Hemisphere in her anthology, Johana Harris chose the work of five composers, three of whom appear on the present disc. She began with the handful of solo piano pieces by her marital and professional partner of forty-three years, Roy Harris (1898–1979), one of the key figures on the creative scene in American symphonic music during the middle third of the Twentieth Century (along with Hanson, Copland, Piston, Barber, and Schuman). Two of the other composers represented in the collection, John Edmunds (1913–1986) and Robert Evett (1922–1975), studied with Roy Harris at Cornell University and Colorado College respectively, while the third, John Heggie (b. 1961) was a piano student with Johana and became her second husband in 1981. (Since Johana’s death in 1995 he has been making a name for himself as a remarkably gifted composer for the voice.) The one composer chosen from south of the border was Mexico’s Carlos Chávez (1899–1978). On this CD, we have the Roy Harris works, plus the single pieces by Evett and Chávez.