Described by the Huffington Post as “lovely,” the music of Ben Morris (b.1993) explores intersections among narratives, imagery, jazz harmony, and improvisation. His work focuses on wonder and memory, inspired by images, places, and seemingly inconsequential objects and events, from food to swimming races. Ben is known for writing a lot of music for his colleagues quickly and without compromise.
Ben graduated summa cum laude from the University of Miami Frost School of Music and is currently pursuing an MM in Composition at Rice University as a Brown Fellow. Active in concert music, jazz, production, and film scoring, he has studied and worked with Lansing McLoskey, Michael Bacon, Eric Ewazen, the members of Imani Winds, Stephen Hartke, Robert Beaser, Chet Biscardi, Missy Mazzoli, Brian Lynch, Gary Lindsay, Martin Bejerano, Tony Brandt, Douglas Cuomo, among others. His music has been performed by the American Composers’ Orchestra, Cadillac Moon, Pulse Trio, LUNAR Ensemble and Gleb Kanasevich, Fredericksburg Brass, Vice City Brass, The Living Earth Show, members of the American Modern Ensemble, members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Resound Duo, Scuffed Shoe Duo, Eliot Gattegno, Imani Winds, the Frost Symphony Orchestra, the University of Miami Concert Jazz Band, the Stamps Ensembles, and countless other student ensembles. For the 2015 Roe and Penny Stamps Annual Concert, Ben composed for and conducted two chamber music and jazz crossover ensembles – a dectet and a 19-piece combo. Ben also collaborates with visual artists and dancers, and his music has been featured as part of Rice Gallery New Art New Music Concerts and the LaTex Electronic Music Festival.
Ben received an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award in 2014, a Downbeat Award, the 2015 Frost School of Music Orchestra Composition Prize, a New Jersey Music Educators’Association Young Composers Award, and a Klezmer Company Orchestra Composer’s Prize and Commission, was featured on the Festival Miami Emerging Composers Competition four years in a row, and has scored award-winning online promotional videos for 21st Century Oncology. In the summer of 2013, Morris was an emerging composer fellow at the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, in summer 2014 he attended the New Music on the Point Festival, in 2015 he participated in the American Composers’ Orchestra Jazz Composers’ Institute, and in 2016 he traveled to Pavia, Italy to participate in the highScore Festival.
Ben has interned with film composer Michael Bacon in New York City for the past four summers. He is an active educator, teaching theory and ear training in the Shepherd School of Music Preparatory Program, in addition to scoring student films, documentaries, and online videos. As a jazz pianist, you can find him at jam sessions and venues throughout Houston, Miami, and NY.