Robert Morris (composer) - Work in Music Theory

Work in Music Theory

As a music theorist, Morris' work has bridged an important gap between the rigorously academic and the highly experimental. Born in Cheltenham, England in 1943, Morris received his musical education at the Eastman School of Music (B.M. in composition with distinction) and the University of Michigan (M.M. and D.M.A. in composition and ethnomusicology), where he studied composition with John La Montaine, Leslie Bassett, Ross Lee Finney (Swift 2001)), and Eugene Kurtz. At Tanglewood, as a Margret Lee Crofts Fellow, he worked with Gunther Schuller. Morris has taught composition, electronic music, and music theory at the University of Hawaii and at Yale University, where he was Chairman of the Composition Department and Director of the Yale Electronic Music Studio. He was also Director of the Computer and Electronic Studio, Director of Graduate (music) Studies, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh (Swift 2001). In 1980 Morris joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music where he presently teaches as Professor of Composition. (He was chair of the Composition Department from 1999–2005 and before that a member of both the composition and music theory departments.) Other teaching posts have included positions at the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts, the Governor's School for the Arts held at Bucknell University, the University of Pittsburgh Computer Music Workshop, and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.