Craig Madden Morris

Craig Morris began his compositional studies at eleven years old. Since then he has added violin, piano and voice to his musical education and studied under Shirley Bloom, Kevin Scott and Joelle Wallach. He has been a violinist with the Bronx Symphony Orchestra for forty years and has worked professionally as a cantor. His music has been performed by the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, the CETA Orchestra of New York, the North Jersey Symphony, Fifth International Music Festival of Buenos Aires, the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, the Chamber Music Society of Formosa, members of the Amasi Trio, the Gregg Smith Singers and the Nyack College Chorale.

His compositions include three piano sonatas and several piano suites, orchestral pieces including several suites, a clarinet concerto, a violin concerto, a cello rhapsody, a concert duet for soprano and tenor, choral compositions and a sacred service for the Sabbath (published in the Journal of Synagogue Music). Two recent choral compositions, Arise My Love and The Rubaiyat, were chosen as finalists in the 2010 Meistersingers Choral Competition and four of his choral works were recorded in 2011 by the Composer’s Choir in Hamden CT.

His music has been hailed as “extremely intelligent, complex and powerful,” “beautiful, lively and moving,” and “very individual yet totally accessible.”

Morris is a child psychiatrist and an assistant professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. A native New Yorker, he has lived in New City NY for many years with his wife Nancy.