“There were several gratifying performances, though, especially of the recent settings of three Shakespeare love poems. The composer, Matthew Harris, treats these sly texts, filled with innuendo, in a straightforward manner. The smart and harmonically pungent music drew a disarming performance from the singers.” Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 5/21/05 “Matthew Harris (b 1956) offers seven striking settings from his Shakespeare Songs that leave no doubt as to his American Heritage. His style recalls his primal rock, blues and jazz influences--but in an overall context of skillful harmonic invention and classical sophistication. Shakespeare sings the blues? It works!” American Record Guide March/April 2005 “Matthew Harris's new A Child's Christmas in Wales for chorus and chamber orchestra was the highlight of a fascinating concert by Harmonium. The composer set seven lengthy sections of Dylan Thomas's poetic reach into in his childhood with a marvelous sense of word painting inhabiting a composition filled with craft. The music began with a gentle suggestion of Gaelic folk music...followed by Harris's amiably, even sweetly chromatic musical narrative. Surely the most fun was Fire ! which was whipped off by the chorus in the manner of a small comic opera. A whimsical duet for oboe and bassoon surfaced. The juxtaposition of this busy episode with the subsequent lovely tenor aria was effective...another of the finely wrought moments. Sounding very much like Gilbert and Sullivan was The Useful Presents ...then The Useless Presents came swinging into view. The final, Always on Christmas Night There was Music, featured an affecting English horn solo...[a] wistful violin solo accompanied the mention of an uncle playing the fiddle. The coda was wordless, like the dreams of the sleeping child: a duo for violin and harp which captured the heart of relaxed Celtic fiddle music. Harris received a standing ovation from the audience. And well he should have, for here was that balance of head and heart that marks music of substance.” Paul Somers, Classical New Jersey Society Journal 1/23/03 “I have saved the best for last: There is a young composer named Matthew Harris (born 1956) who I previously had never hear of, but who I now regard as a genius. Harris's resumé includes studies with Roger Sessions, Elliott carter, Milton Babbitt and Donald Martino. Whew! He must have learned a formidable amount of technique from those guys, but he wears his learning lightly, and I mean that as a very high compliment ... Who Is Sylvia is a 1950s street-corner harmony crossbred with Madrigal. Harris has a wonderfully unintimidated relationship with Shakespeare's texts. He doesn't hesitate to write a musical line that reverses the metrical accents of the poetry, or that seems oblivious to them, crossing stresses at unexpected points. He'll even reverse a couple of words for a measure or two if he needs to, and yet everything works. Nor do the many fine song precedents by Morely and other old masters faze him. Harris takes texts which are always set fast and gives them a ballad treatment, as in his exquisitely moving O Mistress Mine. His version of It Was a Lover and His Lass ambles nostalgically. Throughout the cycle there are rethinkings of Shakespeare lyric that makes one give pause. And what a lot of entertainment there is in these songs! This is a composer who really understands what "Hey nonny, nonny" means (and doesn't mean). Tell Me Where is Fancy Bred is short but unforgettably bouncy. And in Take, O Take Those Lips Away, as throughout the series, his mastery of madrigal form is put to very modern, and accessible, uses. Harris has obviously absorbed all the musical influences available in our great mongrel culture: pop music, Christmas carols, stupid jingles on television. He has spun this dross into pure gold ... I strongly urge that you go out and buy this disc.” Elliott S. Hurwitt, Fanfare, November/December 1994 “The opening work, Matthew Harris' Invitation to the Waltz, written for the Lark last year, comprises a dozen waltzes. The composer, however, rings the changes on that dance's traditional champagne-and-ballgown atmosphere by his use of dissonant harmonies and varied string sonorities.” Rodney Shewan, St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch 1/26/87 “Harris achieved a nice Oriental feeling in these often-intense pieces. Their strongly concentrated expressive values were well brought off...” Carl Cunningham, The Houston Post 10/1/86 (from a Houston Symphony review) “A captivating new work ... In a program that included works of Beethoven and Brahms, the new composition Starry Night was a fascinating centerpiece. "The Harlequin" was a favorite - perhaps a future encore number... a "let's dance" rhythm sealed up the series of seven movements into a nice, neat package. The entire work was succinct, competently delivered and enthusiastically received by the audience.” Mary E. Sholkovitz, The Enterprise 11/23/84 “Matthew Harris's Starry Night ... is a seven part musical tour of the Museum of Modern Art à la "Pictures at an Exhibition" and was notable for its elegant, albeit misty, timbral effects ... curt pre-emptive endings, which have their own self-effacing wit [and] the kind of personality that kept our attention.” Bernard Holland, The New York Times 12/12/84

“Oceanic Eyes is an elegant combination of pop-rock elements with challenging 20th century composition techniques.” The Daily Item [NJ] 5/12/05 “[A] composer worth investigating more deeply, judging from the seven (out of many) of his Shakespeare Songs offered here. Without ever sounding like a stylistic pastiche, the music sometimes evokes lilting Renaissance madrigals (Tell Me Where is Fancy Bred), sometimes English folk music (When That I was and a Little Tiny Boy), sometimes American country-western swing (When Daffodils Begin to Peer).” James Reel, Fanfare Magazine, February 2005 “There are many delights here: the gently swaying, jazz-tinged It Was a Lover and His Lass ...” Rad Bennett, Ultra Audio 1/1/05 “The most engaging work, in terms of wit, originality and craft, was Matthew Harris' potpourri ... Harris is one composer who knows how to write for this instrument. He utilizes the extended technical capabilities of the marimba, and at the same time molds a work whose merits extend far beyond its value as a mere instrumental showpiece... In the fourth movement, "Music Box," Harris fashions the tentative pulse and toy-like arpeggiated tones of a music box, winding its way - slowly - down to nothing. The "Tango" of the second movement is a charming impersonation of the spicy dance, doing for the tango perhaps what Ravel's "La Valse" did for the waltz.” David Abrams, Herald-Journal CNY 6/22/98 “Harris' writing displays the touch of the mature composer. The five movements of the work include an opening "Toccata," sent in a Baroque-like texture and rhythm, a second movement styled rhythmically as an elegant tango, a "Dance Macabre" appropriately flavored by the interval of the tritone, a fourth movement ("Music Box") that treats the listener to a harmonically contemporary tune, and a concluding movement ("Kalimba"), driven by offbeat accents... Harris has something to say musically, and he uses the marimba as an effective vehicle for his ideas.” John R. Raush, Percussive Notes 8/97 “This is a joyously eclectic group of pieces in which Harris exhibits a variety of influences, including Palestrina, the Beatles, and "doo-wop." Though most of these texts have been set many times before (e.g., "O Mistress Mine," "It Was and Lover and His Lass," "Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred," among others), Harris's careful treatment makes them seem fresh. His approach to the text is sometimes reverent and other times light-hearted. For example, he sets "You Spotted Snakes" with gliding choral movement reminiscent of a jazz-band saxophone section.” Scott W. Dorsey, Choral Journal, 8/96 “The winner of the contest, Shakespeare Songs, Book III, by Matthew Harris [was] wonderfully accessible and melodic.” Robert W. Plyler, The Post-Journal, 2/28/94 “Mr. Harris' Ancient Greek Melodies were lively, almost Gypsy-like, very tuneful and marked with broad and varied use of percussion. Bravo, Mr. Harris, wonderful music!” Tom Power, Chattanooga News - Free Press 9/27/91 (Chattanooga Symphony review) “Harris' setting of Baudelaire prose-poems deserves better than the confining connotations of opera. Instead Harris and stage director Karen Miller gave us images: the woman clad in black silk pajamas draped on a couch; music in sinuous patterns, like smoke curling up to the ceiling; a verse reference to Holland evoked in the static patterns of a musical still life.” Jeanyne Bezoier Slettom, Ear Magazine, April 1988 “Matthew Harris' "Music After Rimbaud," for flute, clarinet, violin and cello, was an attempt - generally quite successful - to give five miniature tone poems the clarity of vocal writing. The settings were often evocative to the point of being picturesque... The "Ophelia" poems and "Dawn" seemed particularly fine.” Marilyn Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/87 “Harris' setting for voice of five poems by Amy Lowell was the most attractive music for me in terms of cumulative, atmospheric effect. His settings were persuasive.” Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle 10/1/86 (from a Houston Symphony review) “Matthew Harris's MBTA for solo percussionist [was] coloristically bold.” John Rockwell, The New York Times 2/17/83