Perhaps stimulated by both his and Johana's activities in radio and television and the good fortune of having his work disseminated by recordings early in his career, Harris maintained an avid interest in sound technology, an interest that blossomed into a firm commitment in the 1950s and 60s with his participation in the construction of recording studios on the campuses of the Pennsylvania College for Women/Chatham College and the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico. These facilities were used not only for recordings of his own works but also for those of students and for festival programs (they proved invaluable in documenting the 1960 and 1961 International String Congress sessions in San German).
Harris does not appear to have pursued his studies on piano and organ into the arena of professional work, nor, evidently, did he keep up the clarinet following his chamber orchestra work in the early20s. However, from the 1940s through the early 70s, he did take up the baton as conductor of both his own and other composer's works, this skill appearing to have received its most intensive nurturing during the festival activities in Colorado Springs and Sewanee and, most especially, the first few years of the International String Congress. He was often invited to lead performances of his music, including an occasional premiere, with orchestras and bands of all statures (there is only scant documentation of any choral work). Harris's success in this realm was variable, especially during the last decade of his conducting activity, when a failing memory and his sometimes erratic beat and unexpected tempi were apt to unnerve even the most accomplished professional groups.
Harris's professional and honorary affiliations included both ASCAP and BMI, the American Federation of Musicians (he belonged to local chapters in the some of the areas in which he resided), the American Composers Alliance (of which he was a founder), the aforementioned Composers' Forum-Laboratory, the Fellowship of American Composers, the National Association for American Composers and Conductors (later the National Association of Composers, USA), the Lotos Club, the Cornell University Clef Club, and the Pittsburgh Musicians Club (he was an honorary life member of both this and the Cornell organization).
