American composer Roy Harris (1898-1979) was a leading figure of the "American" movement in music in the 1930s and 1940s; he composed over 200 works.

Roy Harris was born on Feb. 12, 1898, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. He migrated to California with his parents while still a boy. After military service in World War I, he began serious musical study at the University of California at Berkeley. His mentor was composer Arthur Farwell, who introduced him to the poetry of Walt Whitman and encouraged him to develop a distinctive style. He also studied with Charles Demarest, Fannie Dillon, Henry Schoenfeld, and Modest Altschuler.

Harris's first orchestral composition, Andante, was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1926. With the encouragement of Aaron Copland, Harris then spent three years working with composer/pianist Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Under her tutelage, he wrote a Concerto for piano, clarinet, and string quartet which established him...