Educator

Harris is a passionate educator who has taught at universities throughout the world, led curriculum development at the Brubeck Institute, served as a part of the jazz faculty at New York University, and formerly served as the Associate Dean and Director of Jazz Arts at Manhattan School of Music. He is currently Artistic Advisor of Jazz Education at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) and is a tenured Associate Professor of Music at Rutgers University – Newark.

He received his Bachelor of Music in Classical Music and Master of Music in Jazz Performance at Manhattan School of Music.

“The Art of Listening,” part of a series of documentaries focusing on Harris’s community work in arts education in Kalamazoo, won 3 Gold Camera awards and 3 Michigan EMMY nominations. More recently he was the subject of a documentary, The Sound of New York viewable on QwestTV and produced and directed by Italian filmmaker Gloria Rebecchi.