About

Stefon Harris

A man dressed in a black coat and white shirt sitting on a black chair in a room with large windows, a xylophone in the background, and a cityscape outside the windows.

Stefon Harris is the creator of Harmony Cloud. Along with being an app developer, Harris is a Grammy-nominated jazz vibraphonist, educator, and thought leader.

Harris has been heralded as “one of the most important artists in jazz” (Los Angeles Times) and is a recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award and the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center. He has been named Best Mallet Player eight times by the Jazz Journalist Association and Best Vibes Player in DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Poll. Harris currently tours with his Grammy-nominated band, Blackout, and has released eleven albums as a leader. He has also recorded and performed with The Classical Jazz Quartet, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Lewis Nash, the SFJAZZ Collective, Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Milt Jackson, Lionel Hampton, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Max Roach, Chaka Khan, Kurt Elling, Buster Williams, Dianne Reeves, Common, and Pablo Zeigler.

As an educator, Harris has taught at universities throughout the world, led curriculum development at the Brubeck Institute, served as a part of the jazz faculty at New York University for a decade, and formerly served as the Associate Dean and Director of Jazz Arts at Manhattan School of Music. Currently, Harris is an Associate Professor of Music at Rutgers University–Newark, Director of the Harmony Lab, and Co-Director of Express Newark. Along with his work at Express Newark and Rutgers University–Newark, he is also Artistic Advisor of Jazz Education at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC).

As a thought leader, Harris leads transformative presentations on corporate leadership and team empowerment for Fortune 100 companies using jazz as a metaphor. His TED Talk, “There Are No Mistakes on the Bandstand,” has gained nearly 900,000 views.