A spoken word musical performance composed and performed by Lisa E. Harris with students in Professor Claire Chase’s Freshman seminar “Music and Community.”
Lisa (Li), E. Harris, is an independent and interdisciplinary artist and creative soprano. Li’s practice centers on understanding the complex interrelationships between land, body, spirit, and place. She uses a variety of genres and methods of working–from the voice to new media–as the basis of her work.
Li is the founder and creative director of Studio Enertia, an arts education and production studio in Houston, Texas. She was a Research Fellow at Tulane University’s Center for the Gulf Coast. She was recently named the Inaugural Fellow for the Center for Art and Social Engagement at the University of Houston.
Harvard Music Professor of the Practice Claire Chase is a solo flutist, collaborative artist, educator, and advocate for new and experimental music. Professor Chase has not only commissioned hundreds of new works by a generation of composers but has supported and built community internationally among new musicians and audiences.
Claire was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012, the Avery Fisher Prize in 2017, and honorary doctorates from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She is a founder of International Contemporary Ensemble, described as “America’s foremost new-music group.
Claire and Li are challenging the conventional boundaries of music, performance, and art. Both are dedicated to incorporating education and collaboration as an integral part of their artistic practices and advocacy work.
Photo: Li Harris by Randall Starr