Dr. Darryl E. Harris
Interim Director of Orchestral Studies/Instructor of Music
Darryl E. Harris, Sr., a native of Greenville, MS is Interim Director of Orchestra and Instructor of Music at Jackson State University. He is formerly Director of Orchestra at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, while also serving as the Assistant Conductor and Instructor of Beginning Strings for the Etowah Youth Orchestras. He is the former music director/conductor of the Chagrin Valley (OH) Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra Chamber Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. In addition, he served as assistant conductor of the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Southern Mississippi Chamber Orchestra, and music director of the Southern Opera and Musical Theatre’s 2006 production of Godspell. From 2008 to 2012, he was Instructor of Strings/Conductor of Orchestra in the Hattiesburg (MS) Public Schools. From 1997 to 2001, he served as a Docent for the Cleveland Orchestra and as the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s Educational Outreach Representative.
The recipient of a Chicago Symphony Orchestra Scholarship as a Bassoonist of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Harris has played with such orchestras as: The New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York City Opera Orchestra, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Kokomo (IN) Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra, The Nassau (Long Island) Symphony Orchestra, the Tacoma (WA) Symphony Orchestra and the Greenville (MS) Symphony Orchestra amongst others.
As guest conductor, Dr. Harris has conducted the Jackson (MS) All-City High School String Orchestra, the Jackson Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, the Mobile (AL) Symphony Orchestra Youth Orchestra, he was also the Rehearsal Conductor for the Alabama All-State Orchestra, the Nassau (Long Island) Symphony Orchestra, the United States Air Force Band in Washington, D.C., the Chamber Orchestra of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Tacoma (WA) Community Orchestra. In addition, he has served as Choir Director/Minister of Music in churches throughout the United States to include: Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, the First Baptist Church of Garmon Street in Warner Robins, Georgia, the Second Baptist Church in Kokomo, Indiana and the Lynbrook Conservative Baptist Church on Long Island, New York and has articles published in The National Baptist Review.
Harris holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from University of Southern Mississippi where he studied with Dr. Jay L. Dean and a Masters of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of Carl Topilow and Louis Lane. Also, he is a magna cum laude graduate in Music Education from Case Western Reserve University where he was inducted into the Golden Key National Honor Society and has degrees also from Western Illinois University, SUNY@ Empire State College and the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago in Church Music. His bassoon teachers include George F. Goslee (Cleveland Orchestra), Harold Goltzer (New York Philharmonic), Wilbur Simpson (Chicago Symphony), Leonard Sharrow (NBC Orchestra), Carl Nitchie (Atlanta Symphony) and coaching by Willard Elliot (Chicago Symphony).