Franklin E Morris

Franklin E. Morris is an American composer, b. 1920 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He received a professional education as a chemist, receiving a BS in chemistry from Ursinus College in Pennsylvania in 1941 and a Ph.D in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946.

Simultaneously he attended Cape Cod Institute of Music during the summers of 1939-41 as a piano major, and studied composition at Harvard University with Walter Piston in 1946. He then received a second set of degrees in music at the Yale School of Music: B.Mus. in composition in 1947-48 and an M.Mus. in composition (with Paul Hindemith), 1950–1951

From 1951 through 1985, Morris was Professor of theory and composition at the School of Music at Syracuse University. During those years He organized annual recitals of solo and chamber works during each of these years. He composed and produced an opera, "The Postponment" in 1959 and performed his Symphony in 1961. MacDowell colony residencies spring 1963, winter 1964, spring 1965. Symphony 2 with the Syracuse Symphony in 1967.

He is best known for having founded and directed the Electronic Studio of School of Music at Syracuse University from 1966 through 1985, after participating in Robert Moog's Electronic Music Workshop in Trumansburg, New York. Morris presented many multi-media events combining electronic music with visual and dramatic arts from 1966 through 1976. These events took place in Syracuse and other colleges throughout the Northeastern United States, and at Composers' Forum, the Gate Theatre, The Kitchen, Automation House in NYC. They were also included in four of Charlotte Moorman's Festivals of the Avant Garde in New York City.

Morris began a long series of Electronic Symphonies, at first using only analog electronic sounds (Symphony 1 in 1976). He retired from teaching at Syracuse Univ 1985. He afterwards continued to compose using sounds from the new digital keyboards as they became available, up to over symhonies 1000. These symphs were uploaded to soundcloud.com. Some of them were uploaded to soundclick.com. An arbitrary group of symphs were copied & described as burned cds for listeners.

Upon death of Franklin E Morris, all audio, & other media matrials concerned with the artistic & certain personal properties in the life of Dr.Morris will be stored in the Byrd Library of Syracuse University.