Peter Harris was born into a music loving family of twelve children. His father is a doctor who loves Beethoven and his mother is a classically trained pianist who instilled in all her children a deep appreciation for the classical masters, especially J.S. Bach.
Peter began violin studies at age nine. He later fell in love with rock and pop music and took up guitar, learning the music of masters such as Clapton, Hendrix and Page. Throughout his teens he performed with and arranged for several local ensembles.
By high school, Peter realized that composing and performing music was a lifelong love and prepared for college. He studied music theory and classical composition with composer Jerry Owen of Coe College. He composed pieces for orchestra, choir and jazz band.
Peter received a Bachelor’s in Music from the University of Miami, Coral Gables Fla. He studied composition with Alfred Reed and Clifton Williams, classical guitar with Rene Gonzalez, classical piano with Rosalina Sackstein and electric guitar with Pat Metheny and Randall Dollohan. He composed arrangements for and performed with the award winning University of Miami Concert Jazz Band.
In Miami, Peter experienced a rich musical environment. He performed in local bands, wrote many arrangements and performed with pop artists such as Burt Bacharach and classical ensembles such as The Miami Philharmonic. Among his most treasured experiences were performing with and learning from the extraordinary masters of latin music, rhythm and blues and jazz who lived in South Florida. The joy was not just in learning the music, but in coming to a deeper appreciation of the cultures and life experiences that gave birth to the music.
After graduation, Peter was a featured guitar soloist with Grammy winner Chuck Mangione and toured the world with Chuck’s band. Then he moved to Los Angeles where he continued his orchestration and film scoring studies with composer Albert Harris. He also studied orchestral conducting with William Kettering, known for instructing such luminaries as Randy Newman, Thomas Newman and Bennett Salvay.
Shortly thereafter Bruce Hornsby asked Peter to tour with his band in support of his debut album The Way It is. The tour began in the summer and by fall Bruce Hornsby and The Range had the number one song in England and in the United States shortly thereafter. By winter they were guests on Saturday Night Live and the Grammy Awards Show where the band won a Grammy for Best New Artist.
Between tours, Hornsby and Harris collaborated on the score for a CBS Special featuring James Earl Jones entitled Soldier Boys. Bruce wrote the main theme while Peter composed secondary themes and the score. For this project Peter used a classical chamber orchestra. Bruce and Peter received a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Direction and Composition.
Peter has continued to work with Bruce, having conducted several live orchestral concerts and written several string arrangements.
Peter’s first feature score was Nick Furst, S.B.I., a spy comedy written and directed by Emmy winner Jon Zuber. It received a warm reception at The Santa Barbara Film Festival.
After Nick Furst, S.B.I., Peter contributed music to an Academy Award nominated short directed by Peter Weller. Weller then hired Harris to score a Showtime feature, Elmore Leonard’s Gold Coast starring David Caruso and Marg Helgenberger. For this noir thriller, Weller asked for an agitated, unsettled feeling and the Florida setting was a perfect opportunity for Harris to combine impressionistic harmonies with the rhythms he had learned from Cuban and rhythm and blues musicians in Miami. Weller’s creative direction inspired Peter to blend the old with the new and create a noir score that was organic to the film.
Peter also orchestrated for that most soulful composer W.G. Snuffy Walden, one of the fathers of contemporary television scoring. Creatively, he learned volumes from Snuffy about how to score a wide variety of scenes — especially how to play the subtext in dialogue driven narratives. Snuffy also taught him how to manage multiple projects simultaneously while still delivering the highest quality of score.
Peter’s next feature was Happy, Texas, a film produced by Mark Illsley, Ed Stone and Norman Buckley. The music supervisor was the prolific Alexandra Patsavas in collaboration with Emily Kaye. The film was a Sundance hit and was acquired and theatrically released by Miramax. It plays regularly on The Comedy Channel and other venues worldwide. On top of being a wonderful creative experience, it was a joy for Peter to watch Mark and Ed commit to this charming but risky project and succeed. As a manager on this independent production, Peter was proud that his department came in on time and on budget.
Music is Peter’s hobby as well as his vocation. He enjoys studying orchestral music, practicing classical piano and designing new sounds. Although guitar is his main instrument, he enjoys practicing classical piano. He recently learned Fugue No. 2 in C minor from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. He continues to divide his time between composing and performing. He sometimes performs with trumpeter Peter Weller and pianist Jeff Goldblum. Both of the Buckaroo Banzai guys are trained musicians.
Peter has just built a powerful composing system that can produce any genre of score imaginable, from orchestral to the edgiest of sound design, with state of the art sound quality. He is grateful for the fruitful collaborations he has had and looks forward to future collaborations with some of the many wonderful filmmakers working today.