Died 7 March 2000 | ||
Margaret Rosezarian Harris (September 15, 1943 – March 7, 2000) was an American musician, conductor, composer, and educator, the first African-American woman to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and 13 other cities' orchestras.
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Early life and education
Margaret Rosezarian Harris was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Dewey Harris, a railroad mechanic, and Clara Townsend Harris, a dressmaker. At age 3, she was recognized as a musical prodigy, and gave her first piano recital at Chicago's Cary Temple Auditorium, performing more than twenty short pieces from memory. She toured the United States as a child performer until age 6. At age 10, after performing a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony, she won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and moved there with her mother. Margaret Harris earned undergraduate and master's degrees, with highest honors, from the Juilliard School.
Career
In 1970, she took over the role of musical director for the Broadway production of Hair, conducting an orchestra of seven older male musicians. Later she worked on the Broadway musical adaptations Raisin and Two Gentlemen of Verona, among other shows. She moved between popular and classical contexts. Among her compositions were two ballets, an opera, and a piano concerto. She was co-founder of Opera Ebony. "All I care about is that music be good, and that it communicate with a broader public, without special introductions of apologies. All those barriers between pop and classical are snobbish, artificial." The National Association of Negro Musicians honored Margaret R. Harris in 1972 for her achievements. In 1975, she became the first black woman to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the first woman to conduct there in over forty years.
In 1995, Harris went to Tashkent, Uzbekistan to consult on a production of Porgy and Bess.
Margaret R. Harris died in 2000, aged 56 years, in New York City, after a heart attack. She was about to take up an appointment at associate dean of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music at the time of her sudden death.