Harry Stewart Somers, CC (September 11, 1925 – March 9, 1999) was a contemporary Canadian composer.

[5] Somers did not become involved in formal musical study until he reached his teenage years in 1939 when he met a doctor and his wife—both pianists—who introduced him to classical works.

(Schoenberg had enforced similarly strict lessons in traditional harmony upon his own pupils, even as he encouraged them to explore dodecaphony.)

[1] Somers took a sabbatical from his studies in 1943 to serve with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

[1] After WWII, Somers returned to the Royal Conservatory to continue his studies with Weinzweig with a new piano teacher, Weldon Kilburn.

[1] In 1949, he was awarded a $2000 Canadian Amateur Hockey Association scholarship to spend a year in Paris studying composition with Darius Milhaud.

[1] Also in 1963, Somers began his part-time career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by hosting televised youth concerts.

[1] Also in 1967, he produced his best-known work, the opera Louis Riel, commissioned for Canada's Centennial Year celebrations.

[1] In the 1990s, he composed two operas, Serinette to a libretto by James Reaney,[14] and Mario the Magician, which was adapted from a story by Thomas Mann.

[1] Canada honoured him in 1995 with tribute concerts given by the University of Ottawa and the National Arts Centre for his 70th birthday.

[16] The styles that are said to have influenced Somers the most are the music of Weinzweig, Bartók and Ives, Baroque counterpoint, serial technique and Gregorian chant.

Some of his works feature "sharp, nervous, rhythmic vitality, which often serves as a foil for slower-moving subsidiary melodic lines.