John Harbison is an American composer and conductor whose music ranges from intimate chamber works to opera and large sacred compositions. His catalog includes symphonies, concertos, string quartets and song cycles, alongside works that reflect his longstanding interests in jazz and early music. He studied at Harvard and Princeton and joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His cantata The Flight into Egypt received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize, and he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989. As a conductor, Harbison has worked with major orchestras and with Boston’s Emmanuel Music and Cantata Singers. His compositions include the opera The Great Gatsby and the orchestral-choral works Four Psalms, Requiem and Abraham.