Ian Keith Harris

Ian Keith Harris was born^[1] in Melbourne, living there for the first 26 years of his life. He started the piano at the age of five, playing cornet in his school band, then violin for a couple of years at high school, and later was a school pianist. In 1952, he began his Bachelor of Music degree at Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music, taking piano as chief study and oboe as second. Later, he changed to oboe as his chief study and studied composition with Jiři Tancibudek and Arthur Nickson.

He was soon in demand as a freelance orchestral musician, arranger and copyist, working in a very eclectic mix of musical spheres from arrangement for television and various theatrical shows to playing in opera, ballet, chamber music and symphony orchestras. He was a founding member of the Glendenian Trio (flute, oboe, bassoon), which gave regular broadcasts over several years. The trio was another area in which his arrangement skills were frequently employed.

He served some years as an oboist for J. C. Williamson theatres, playing musicals, opera, and several Gilbert and Sullivan Opera seasons, several ballet seasons (Borovansky Ballet), Australian tours of the Royal Covent Garden Ballet, and the American Ballet Company, and as a copyist / arranger with GTV channel 9. In 1961 Ian Harris moved to Hobart, Tasmania (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra), was seconded to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (cor anglais) for several months, returned to Tasmania only to be seconded again 1964, this time to the Victorian Symphony Orchestra (oboe). Back again in Tasmania, his next move was to Wellington, New Zealand (1965–1974) to join NZBCSO (the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra) as Principal Cor anglais.

Harris tutored at the universities of Tasmania, Melbourne, and the Victoria University of Wellington. He was deeply committed to music education and also conducted the Tasmanian Junior Youth Orchestra for several years. He completed his degree in composition at the Victoria University of Wellington (with David Farquhar) in 1969.

Harris was a dedicated member of ALP policy committees, especially in Education and the Arts and served as music critic for The Mercury, Hobart's daily newspaper, for several years.

Ian Harris moved back to Sydney in 2000, where he devoted himself to composition. He died at Gosford Hospital in New South Wales on 3 April 2024, at the age of 88.^[2]