Women Composing

a celebration through the centuries to the present


Lillie Harris (born 1994)

Lillie Harris was born in Canterbury, England. She graduated from the Royal College of Music and is currently based in South-East London.

Lillie Harris from her website

Lillie Harris’s website identifies her as a “Composer | Copyist | Engraver” who has devoted part of her career to the preparation of scores and parts. She has particularly focused on sustainable approaches to music printing, and she wrote the user manual for the Dorico music notation software.

Lillie Harris composed her 2018 orchestral work “Recall” for the Young Composer’s program of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She has described the work like this:

The concept of recollection is the inspiration behind this piece. When we are unable to remember or explain a connection or sensation of familiarity instantly, we must go on a journey of frustration, revelation, and (hopefully) ultimately joy. Sometimes it only takes a few seconds, but sometimes it can take days to find the connection at last, and that process can be confusing and disorienting, convoluted and disarming. This piece explores the emotional experience of remembering, and in places reflects the bizarre electrical networks in our brains that bring us to the correct solution in the end.

She has also revealed that the composition uses the Medieval Latin “Pange lingua” plainsong melody “as a starting block and as inspiration for the final ‘complete’ phrase at the end of the piece.”

The composer appears onstage at the end of the performance.