DAVID MORRIS
David Morris was born in Sea Lake, Victoria in 1964. He grew up in country towns in Victoria and South Australia, and learned piano from the age of seven and clarinet while at high school. He was awarded major prizes for piano from the Australian Music Examinations Board and the Adelaide Eisteddfod, and gained a Bachelor of Music in piano performance at the University of Adelaide in 1985. He developed a strong interest in choral singing during his university years, and has sung in parish, cathedral, university, community and festival choirs in several Australian states.
He began composing in his early teens and has gained the diplomas of Licentiate of the Trinity College of London in Compositional Techniques in 1995, and of Fellowship in Composition in 1996. Also in 1996, he was accepted by the Australian Music Centre for associate representation as a composer.
David’s compositions sit firmly within the Western classical tradition, while acknowledging influences as diverse as plainchant, Celtic folk, middle-of-the-road jazz and blues, and miminalism. A well-crafted, elegant, approachable and deceptively simple style yields depths and detail to challenge and reward performers and listeners. He has a special interest in chamber instrumental, vocal solo and choral music, and in arrangements for unusual or flexible combinations.
Two of his original compositions (a sonatina for flute and piano, and a sonata for clarinet and piano) and three American folk hymn arrangements for three keyboards have been published by Manduca Music, Maine. One choral work, ‘Veni Repemptor Gencium’, was awarded a high commendation in the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto Christmas Carol and Hannukah Song Writing Competition in 1996 and another, ‘Alleluya’, was performed by the Lutheran Choir of Chicago in 1997.
David lives in Sydney, New South Wales, and works as an editor of law reports for Australia’s leading legal publisher. His evening and weekend job is as a music typesetter in which capacity he has prepared scores and/or parts for some of Australia’s leading composers for performance and publication in Australia and overseas.
He sings in two of Sydney’s leading choirs: Coro Innominata, a community-based chamber choir, and the Choir of St James’ Anglican Church, King St, a city parish church choir.