Darryl Harper
Assistant professor
Music history, Improvisation
Phone: (804) 828-6183
E-mail: dharper2@vcu.edu
Office: Singleton Center, Room 234
Clarinetist Darryl Harper has performed for more than 20 years in venues throughout the world. His credits include opening concerts for Max Roach, the Billy Taylor Trio and the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, as well as dates with Freddie Bryant, Orrin Evans, Tim Warfield, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Carla Cook, Roscoe Mitchell, Dave Holland and Uri Caine.
Harper recently finished a two-year stint with violinist Regina Carter, touring her latest Verve release, “I’ll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey,” throughout the U.S., Europe, South America and the Caribbean.
As a composer, Harper has published and recorded more than two dozen works. He has written a film score for a PBS documentary and commissions for choreographers Li Chiao-Ping and Ingo Taleb Rashid and visual artists Peter Bruun and Elisa Jimenez. Harper has been recognized by critics for “incisive arrangements” and for “richly melodic and … refreshingly inventive” writing.
In the late 1990s, Harper began his career as a bandleader with the formation of the Onus Quintet and the subsequent Onus Trio. These ensembles have performed at venues throughout the country — including a concert for President Bill Clinton — appeared on television and recorded four albums on the Hipnotic Records label. Harper’s groups are acclaimed for their “poise and maturity” and “the empathy Harper and cohorts have developed over … years of working together ….” Harper’s latest projects as a leader are the clarinet-piano duo Into Something and the C3 Project, a multi-media presentation of music, video, dance and poetry.
Harper has taught for more than 15 years and has lectured internationally. He has been recognized by his colleagues with a Gold Pin Award for extraordinary contributions to the school community and he has been described as “an excellent role model and a savvy educator who knows how to get through to students.”
Harper holds music degrees from Amherst College, Rutgers University and New England Conservatory. He teaches courses in improvisation and music history at VCU.
