Andrew Morris (conductor)

Andrew Morris (born 18 December 1948) is a British conductor, organist, adjudicator and teacher based in Cambridge.

Biography

Andrew Morris was brought up on the Isle of Wight. He was a boy chorister of Westminster Abbey under Sir William McKie^[1] and then gained a music scholarship to Bembridge School before entering the Royal Academy of Music in 1967, where he studied organ, piano and conducting. He then read for the BMus and the MA degrees at the University of London before taking an MEd degree by research at Pembroke College, Cambridge where he was also Schoolmaster Fellow Commoner. He is a Fellow of Trinity College London and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1988.

Career

In 1971 Andrew Morris succeeded Brian Brockless as Organist and Director of Music at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, in the City of London. During his 8-year tenure at the Church, he developed both the music within the liturgy and the concert programmes, making records with Abbey Records and broadcasting on BBC Radio 3 and ITV. He also directed the music for the annual Dedication Service of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor which took place at St Bartholomew-the-Great where the Knights Bachelor Chapel was situated. Whilst at St Bartholomew's he re-founded the New English Singers in 1974 and he conducted concerts with the group in and around London. His work with adult chamber choirs continued and, in 1985, he founded the New Bedford Singers which he conducted for 10 years in concerts in the home counties. At St Bartholomew-the-Great he directed the Festival to celebrate the 850th Anniversary of the founding of St Bartholomew's Priory and Hospital in 1973, the Queen's Silver Jubilee Festival of Music in 1977 and two International Festivals of Twentieth Century Music in 1978 and 1979 which were widely acclaimed in the press for both their performances and originality^[2] during which Morris conducted many first performances and London premieres of works by British and European composers. Andrew Morris also played as an organ recitalist in these festivals and, at various times, has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, St Paul's Cathedral, King's College, Cambridge, Hexham Abbey and most of the churches of the City of London as an organist.

In 1972 Andrew Morris was appointed Professor of Harmony and Piano at the London College of Music, where he remained until 1976. The same year, he was appointed Director of Music at Christ's College, Finchley, where he taught until 1979.

In 1979 Andrew Morris became Director of Music at Bedford School where he remained for 32 years. During this time at Bedford, he developed the Music School into one of the largest school music departments in the UK and brought its music making to unprecedented heights.^[3] He also presided over the building of a new Music School, opened in March 2006 by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of The Queen's Music. Under him the School's First Orchestra played most of the Classical and Romantic concerto and symphonic repertoire as well as symphonies by Sibelius and Nielsen and new works by British composers such as Paul Patterson and the recipients of the Composer-in-Residence Scheme which Morris set up at Bedford School (with funds from the Maingot Trust), Alan Charlton, Paul Whitmarsh, Tim Watts and James Lark. With the School Choral Society, Morris conducted many of the major choral works including Bach's B minor Mass, the St John Passion, the St Matthew Passion, Handel's Israel in Egypt and Samson, the Verdi Requiem and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius to name but a few. He also took the Chapel Choir, with whom he established a strong cathedral repertoire in the weekly Chapel services, to sing in many English cathedrals and churches, including St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and on tours to Madrid, Venice^[4] Paris and Chartres. His notable pupils include the international conductor and violinist Andrew Manze, Royal Opera House timpanist and professor of timpani at the Royal College of Music Christopher Ridley, composer and choral director Philip Stopford, pianist and conductor William Vann, counter-tenor Matthew Venner and the former England cricket captain Alastair Cook, CBE. At Bedford School, Morris established a Visiting Fellows scheme, made up of advisers to the Music Department and the Bedford boys, who include Stephen Cleobury, CBE (Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge), Andrew Manze (then Chief Conductor of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), Richard Egarr (Director of the Academy of Ancient Music), Paul Patterson (then Manson Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music) and Roger Wright, CBE (then Controller of BBC Radio 3 and Director of the BBC Proms). While at Bedford, Andrew Morris was a Trustee of the St Albans Cathedral Music Trust.

Andrew Morris has been actively involved in the contemporary music scene throughout his career and was a member of the Executive Committee of the New Macnaghten Concerts from 1978 to 1984 and of which he was chairman from 1981 to 1984. He has been associated with the Park Lane Group since 1985 and has been a member of the Artistic Committee, the Committee of Management and the Advisory Council on which he currently sits. In addition, he was a member of the Committee of the RAM Club at the Royal Academy of Music from 1998 to 2011 and served as President of the RAM Club from 2005 to 2006.

Andrew Morris has been engaged in music education at a national level throughout most of his career. He was President of the Music Masters' and Mistresses' Association (MMA), the largest and the longest established association of professional music teachers in the UK, from 1996 to 1997, having served as a member of the MMA Committee from 1988 to 1998 and as Honorary Secretary from 1990 to 1995.^[5] He also founded and chaired the MMA Academic Sub-Committee from 1995 to 2000 and the MMA University Liaison Committee 2002 to 2007. In addition, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Music Education Council from 1996 to 1999. He has been an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music since 1981 and has examined throughout the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. He also currently supervises harmony, counterpoint and keyboard skills in Cambridge University colleges. In 2011 he was commissioned by the Bernarr Rainbow Trust to co-author and edit an update of Rainbow's Music and the English Public School.^[6] The new book Music in Independent Schools^[7] is the last of the Rainbow books on historic texts to be updated and revised.

He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians 2015 to 2016 and now serves on the Court of the Company as a Pastmaster. He was formerly Chairman of the Musicians' Company Concerts Committee and is a former President of the Company's Livery Club. He is a Trustee and the Subscriptions Secretary of the Pembroke College Cambridge Settlement, Pembroke House, in Walworth, South London, and takes a special interest in the work there of the Pembroke Academy of Music. In 2014 Andrew Morris succeeded Simon Lindley as Chairman of the Friends of the Musicians' Chapel at the Church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London which acts as custodian to the Musicians' Chapel and the Musicians' Book of Remembrance. He has been involved in the recent initiative to establish an annual Friends of the Musicians' Chapel Ensemble-in-Residence at the Church and is currently chairing a committee whose aim is to restore the historic organ at St Sepulchre's on which Sir Henry Wood learnt to play as a boy and whose ashes are buried in the Musicians' Chapel.

References

External links

• Official website:http://www.andrewmorrisconductor.com
• The Worshipful Company of Musicians