Griffin Harrison

Griffin Harrison, from Rochester, New York, is a second-year Timpani Fellow at the New World Symphony. He has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Symphony in C, Festival Orchestra Napa and Philadelphia Orchestra Percussion Group, among others. He has attended the National Repertory Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and School and Festival Napa Valley Blackburn Music Academy. He has worked under the batons of esteemed conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Osmo Vänskä, Peter Oundjian and Rafael Payare.

Griffin received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University, where he studied with Christopher Deviney, Angela Zator-Nelson and Phillip O’Banion, and was recipient of the Alan Abel Memorial Scholarship. He is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Don Liuzzi, Eric Millstein, Ji Su Jung and Robert van Sice.

As a soloist, Griffin appeared with the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra as the winner of the brass and percussion concerto competition and has been featured on the WRTI-FM series Live from the Performance Studio. He has also performed with the Temple University Symphony Orchestra as winner of their school-wide concerto competition.

A passionate educator, Griffin served as the percussion faculty for Temple University’s Community Music Scholars Program, as well as the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune-Up Philly program. He has also served as a teaching artist with Play On Philly.

Griffin holds a diploma with honors from the Eastman Community Music School, where he studied with Ruth Cahn. As a young student, he was a Pathways Scholar at the Eastman Community Music School, a scholarship program for inner city students who demonstrate financial need. In his spare time, he enjoys calisthenics, thrift shopping and sipping yerba mate on the beach.