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Contact Information |
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Kathleen Powell
Executive Director
Memphis Youth Symphony Program
3355 Poplar Avenue, Suite 305
Memphis, TN 38111
Phone: (901) 327-5078
info@memphisyouthsymphony.org
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Douglas R. Morrison, D.M.A. |
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The MYS program is pleased to welcome Dr. Douglas R. Morrison to Memphis as conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony. Dr. Morrison comes to Memphis from Amarillo, Texas, where he served as Music Director/Conductor of the Amarillo Symphony Youth Orchestra and Resident Conductor of Chamber Music Amarillo. For the four years prior, he served as Director of Orchestral Activities at West Texas A & M University. A native of Michigan, Maestro Morrison completed his advanced studies at Michigan State University, studying conducting with Leon Gregorian, previously having studied privately with Dr. Valter Poole, former Associate Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Upon completion of undergraduate studies in Michigan, Dr. Morrison served on the faculty of the Armed Forces School of Music in Norfolk, Virginia. He then returned to the Detroit area where he became Music Director of the Scandinavian Symphony Orchestra, the Dearborn Choral Arts Society, and the Michigan Lyric Opera Company.
The Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras, the Kentucky Youth Chamber Orchestra, and concurrent duties at the Stephen Collins Foster Music Camp led Morrison and his young family to the Lexington, Kentucky area.
Mr. Morrison then returned to Michigan to complete his doctoral studies. During his time at Michigan State University, Douglas Morrison conducted the University Opera Theater, the Campus Orchestra, and served as assistant conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra. It was during this time that Morrison became associate conductor of the Battle Creek Symphony.
Dr. Morrison has also served as Director of University Orchestras at East Carolina University. In 1999, as the first American orchestra to be invited to perform in the annual International Festival of Student Orchestras in Prague, Douglas Morrison led the ECU Symphony Orchestra in historic performances in the Czech Republic and Austria.
Active as a conductor of opera and ballet, Morrison has led fully staged productions of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Der Schauspieldirektor, Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, seven of the thirteen Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, numerous musical comedies, and Tschaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet.
A strong advocate of taking music outside of academia and into the community, Dr. Morrison has conducted many outreach, educational, and "pops" concerts, and has appeared as guest conductor/clinician/adjudicator with regional high school honor orchestras throughout Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Mexico.
Douglas has three children, Jessica, Robert, and John, and is married to pianist/violinist Julie Taylor Morrison.
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