Jeffrey Harrington was born in 1955 in Forest, Mississippi.  His mother and father
were amateur musicians who played the popular music of the 40's and 50's for fun.  In 
high school he taught himself blues and boogie-woogie piano and built a synthesizer 
from parts.  He began composing when he was 17 and won a composition contest for a
serial composition using a rhythm from a Billy Cobham song bass line.   

Harrington continued his composition studies at LSU and at the Juilliard School where
he studied in the Master's program with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions.  He has 
also studied with Morton Subotnick, Jacob Druckman, Joan LaBarbara, James Drew, 
Barbara Jazwinski and Deborah Drattell.  

In 1981 he began a series of compositions using the harmonic idiom of the 18th century
with rhythms from jazz and African-American music.  In 1987 he returned to a more
chromatic style of composition while retaining his interest in melody and counterpoint
and the dramatic/developmental processes of the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

In 1991 he programmed an expert system in C (inspired by a book by Taniiev - 
_Convertible_Counterpoint_) which assists him in his discovery of the contrapuntal 
possibilities inherent in his melodies.  The system takes up to 5 tracks of music 
and determines (using a pre-selected harmonic guideline) the points at which the 
melodies mesh to produce effective counterpoint.  The system produces music files 
ready to audition in realtime, so he can simultaneously be developing a transition 
while he produces the next section of counterpoint. 

If you perform or have questions about Harrington's music please contact him:

Jeffrey Harrington
442 Sixth St.
Brooklyn, NY  11215

(718) 965-3780 Home
(212) 366-5540 Work

idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org
72570,3034 CompuServe