Ralph Morris, D.M.A.
Professor
About
Dr. Ralph Morris joined the faculty of the University of Central Oklahoma in 1991. He is the Director of the UCO Symphony Orchestra and teaches viola and chamber music. He is the former Director of the UCO School of Music. He holds a BM from Texas Christian University and a MM and PhD in Musical Arts from Arizona State University. In addition, Dr. Morris studied violin, viola and historical performance practice with Eduard Melkus at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna. His teachers have also included William Magers and Kenneth Schanewerk.
A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Dr. Morris is a former member of the Fort Worth Symphony. He currently serves as principal violist of the Enid Symphony.
While living in Austria for over eight years, he specialized in the performance of Baroque and Classical music, performing with the Capella Academica Wien and the Wiener Barock Solisten in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. He also performed throughout Europe and Japan as a member of the orchestras of the Wiener Volksoper, the Theater an der Wien and the Mozart Oper Salzburg.
As a conductor, he has led the UCO Chamber Orchestra in performances at Merkin Hall in New York City, the Eroica Hall in Vienna, Austria, the Central University of Finance and Economics and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China.
As a member of the UCO Faculty String Quartet, Dr. Morris has performed chamber music throughout Oklahoma, the United States, China, Thailand and Germany. He has been a featured soloist with the Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Community Orchestra, the Jubilee Community Orchestra of Ashville, NC, the UCO Symphony, the UCO Chamber Orchestra and the Thai Symphony in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dr. Morris is an active member of the University of Central Oklahoma Center for Historical Performance and is a founding member of Trio Antiqua, a chamber music group founded in 2014 dedicated to the performance of early music on period instruments.
In 2016 Dr. Morris was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the Oklahoma Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.
Classes Taught
Applied Viola and Violin
Applied Baroque Viola and Violin
UCO Symphony Orchestra
String Chamber Ensembles
String Pedagogy
String Literature
Education and Certifications
DMA - Viola Performance, Arizona State University, 1991, Dissertation topic: A Performance Edition of Bach's Violoncello Suites, Transcribed for Viola.
MM - Viola Performance, Arizona State University, 1987.
BM - Violin Performance and Music Theory, Texas Christian University, 1974
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