Brady Harrison is Head of Percussion Studies at Xavier University's School for Arts and Innovation in Cincinnati, OH, where he is responsible for all aspects of the percussion program, including applied instruction, ensemble, and techniques courses. Additionally, he teaches a host of other topical courses including theory, popular music, and a seminar in contemporary concert music called "The Art of Noise: Music in the 21st Century." He is also on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM) Preparatory Department where he teaches a select group of student percussionists. He maintains a fully equipped private teaching studio, The Studio4Percussion.
Harrison is Principal Timpanist of the Lexington Philharmonic and a Percussionist with the Louisville Orchestra. Additionally, he has served as Principal Percussion for four seasons with the Lyrique en Mer festival in Belle Ile, France. He has recorded with both the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras, and also performs as an extra percussionist with the many other orchestras in the region, including the Dayton Philharmonic, the Kentucky Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, Clermont Philharmonic, and the Springfield Symphony.
As a solo and chamber musician, Harrison has performed across the country and around the world, including France, Italy, Portugal, and as far as India. He has performed as a concerto soloist with orchestras in Nashville, Lexington, and Bombay. Harrison has collaborated with or premiered works by a number of notable composers, including George Crumb, Ney Rosauro, and John Luther Adams, and consistently advocates for new works and commissions from innovative composers. Ongoing chamber projects include his percussion and flute duo, Psonic Union (formerly Milton Street Chamber Music Society), Concert:Nova, and his newest venture for interdisciplinary collaboration, the Broken Box Ensemble. He has a passion for electroacoustic works and interdisciplinary performances that is driven by his special interest in merging musical tradition with electronic innovation.
Harrison is an active artist and clinician, and has adjudicated throughout the Midwest. He is the Northern Kentucky Representative to the Percussive Arts Society and serves on the PAS Technology Committee. Harrison has had the distinct honor of giving several PASIC solo performances.
He can be heard on the Telarc label with both the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, on the milestone recording of John Luther Adams's Strange and Sacred Noise with The Percussion Group Cincinnati on the Mode Records label, and on the Vienna Modern Masters label as a soloist with the Cincinnati Philharmonic Orchestra.
Harrison holds a Bachelors Degree in Performance with a Concentration in Composition from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, a Masters Degree in Percussion Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), and is an ABD DMA candidate at the University of Kentucky.
Harrison is a Yamaha Performing Artist, and an artist/clinician for Sabian Cymbals and Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets. He resides in Walnut Hills, a historic and diverse area of urban renewal in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Heather and their two young children, Bud and Cecilia.
