Michael Morse

Bio:
Michael Morse has completed a Master's in Ethnomusicology (MRP on Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight), plus a Master’s (MRP on Heidegger, 1991) and PhD (1996) in Social and Political Thought at York University. His dissertation was The Tune in Jazz as a Social Process -- Prolegomena to a Sociology of Music. A book on musical rhetoric is in progress.
Michael has taught at York and for several years in the Cultural Studies Programme at Trent University, developing original conceptions for music history and sociology courses, as well as introductory cultural theory and a history of avant garde movements. He has also taught humanities at Humber College, George Brown College, Centennial College and musicianship courses at CAMMAC summer music camp.
An active professional bassist, composer, and arranger, he has appeared in the last year with the Dialogic Duo, the Toronto Jazz Duo, Bill Westcott, Michael Occhipinti duo and trio, Bob Clegg’s Octet, John Brown Trio, Judy Marshak, Rick Stephenson, The Endangered Species Big Band, Jennifer Peck, Geordie MacDonald and the Painkillers, Glen Hall Duo, Trio, and Quintet (featuring Roswell Rudd), The Georgian Bay Dixielanders, Myk Freedman's Quartet Quartet, the Free works Band, Morgonn Ewen, Sonora, RedShift, OutSource, and more. He has recorded recently with Trio Muo, Brenda Scott, Sonora, The Freeworks Band, and composed and performed music for the acclaimed CBC Stratford Festival Series production Guthrie on Guthrie, featuring Colin Fox. Work proceeds on a further CBC production, based on the work of Franz Kafka.
Michael was happily married to Jo-Anne Kirwan Clark, who continues a busy career as an actor at the Shaw Festival and elsewhere. Their children are Timothy, 14, and Molly, 11, who are interested in every sport known to humanity and animals, respectively. Neither of them have the faintest idea who the Spice Girls are.

Some Recent Lectures and Publications:
• Synecdoche and Jazz Improvisation: A Contribution to Musical Rhetoric,” Poiesis, Spring 2002
• “Music Theory and the Time of Nazism,” Music and Nazism International Conference, October 1999
• “Wind Instruments,” “Horns Worldwide,” “Clarinet,” “Piccolo,” entries in The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, edited by David Horn and John Shepherd (forthcoming)

Selected Recent Recordings:
• The Roswell Incident. Glen Hall & OutSource, Leo Records 203
• His Way. A Commemoration of the Art of Frank Sinatra, Rick Stephenson, Binky Records CD 51598
• Live at the Bamboo!, Glenn Hall Quintet featuring Michael Occhipinti and Allan Molnar
• Guthrie on Guthrie, CBC Stratford Festival Series, starring Colin Fox, music composed and performed by Michael Morse, March 5, 1998; CBC Radio RD4003 (originally broadcast June 28/29 1998)