Damian Harron
PhD

Dr Damien Harron is a co-founder of BackBeat Percussion Quartet with which he has received numerous awards including the Royal Overseas League Ensemble Prize (UK), the Concert Artists Guild Prize (USA) and the Gold medal at the Osaka Chamber Music Festa (Japan).

These awards have led to major international concert tours, including five tours of Japan and concerts in Merkin Hall and Weill Hall, New York, featuring many of Damien's compositions.

As a soloist he has gained a reputation as an adventurous performer of new music with a special interest in the commissioning and performance of theatrical works. He has also developed his interests in a great many global styles of percussion playing to gain a reputation as an extremely versatile and imaginative percussionist. Damien is also a member of the new music groups Black Hair and Decibel and appears regularly as a soloist with both groups.

Damien received his PhD in composition from the University of York in 2008. As a composer, Damien’s work often explores what he considers to be the human element of performance in terms of physicality and theatre. His music theatre work Control Freak was premiered at the York Late Music Festival in 2008 and went on to receive numerous performances in the 2009 bmic cutting edge tour.

Damien has also written many intercultural pieces, inspired by other global traditions, and often incorporating instruments from these. He has also written several works involving young people and in 2007 he was commissioned by the Royal Northern College of Music to write a large piece for the closing concert of the RNCM annual Day of Percussion. Another large-scale community music work was Sonar, Soñar which was commissioned by the BBC for televised performance at the 2002 proms series.

Damien was invited to be guest conductor of the Japan Percussion Society massed ensemble at the Philharmonic Hall, Osaka in 2003. He is a mentor for Music for Youth and adjudicates at many regional festivals. He has given guest lectures at many international universities and conservatoires.