Margaret dyer Harris

Margaret Dyer Harris currently holds positions as Assistant Principal violist in the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, violist in Wicked on Broadway, and she is a new member of The Knights chamber orchestra. She was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated chamber orchestra, A Far Cry, and she has performed with various other chamber groups including ECCO, Decoda, and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.  Margaret’s first exposure to chamber music was in her childhood living room, watching her mother, Saskia, join friends to read quartets of Beethoven, Mozart, and lots of Haydn and, since then, she has had the pleasure of performing these works all over the world (and sometimes in her childhood living room with her mother).  Recent seasons’ highlights have included appearances with the Daedalus Quartet, the Amphion Quartet, the Parker Quartet, the Hausmann Quartet, the Peabody Trio and alongside the acclaimed clarinet virtuoso, David Krakauer.  She has also performed with Emannuel Ax, Daniel Hope, Christian Tetzlaff, and Gil Kalish.  Margaret is also in frequent demand as a guest-Principal symphonic violist, most recently appearing in that role with the Sarasota Orchestra, the Santa Fe Opera, Princeton Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Long Island Philharmonic.  Margaret has a strong passion for cultural collaboration and community involvement and in 2010, she was granted a fellowship position in Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect: a program created by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.  In addition to creating engaging chamber music programs for hospitals, detention centers, and other community centers across the city,  she was a guest teacher at Curtis High School on Staten Island during the two-year fellowship. She has also been a guest artist and teacher at the Guildhall School in London, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Yellow Barn Young Artists Festival and she has given masterclasses in Mexico City, Lima, Abu Dhabi, and cities across the United States.  In 2016, Margaret visited Sing Sing Correctional Facility several times as a guest artist for Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program, working with prisoners who were learning instruments and learning to write songs in order to prepare for two culminating performances of their works for other inmates. Margaret holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory. She can be heard on recordings by NEOS Label, Iris Records, Crier Records, and Fortune Records