South Carolinian Ralph Winston Morris (born 1941), known for his signature "soul patch", is the professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tennessee. He is editor of [1]The Tuba Source Book and the Euphonium Source Book. As the conductor of the famed Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble, he started promoting jazz tuba performance in an ensemble setting as early as 1967.[1] Morris created the world’s first tuba/euphonium ensemble at Tennessee Tech. The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble has performed under Morris' Direction on Bourbon Street and at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Disney World, the National MENC Conference in Kansas City, the International T.U.B.A. Conference in Austin, Texas, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and in Carnegie Hall[2] 7 times, produced 22 commercial recordings, some which have been grammy nominated, and generated more than 600 compositions for the tuba, euphonium and tuba ensemble.[3] R. Winston Morris put together the world’s first Euphonium Choir and organized the first ever recording project for Euphonium Choir.[4]
R. Winston Morris was a student of William Bell, tuba player for the John Phillip Sousa Band. Winston was also a member of the Matteson-Phillips Tubajazz Consort with Rich Matteson, Ashley Alexander, John Allred, Buddy Baker on Euphonium, Harvey Phillips & Daniel Perantoni.[5] Currently, he is the tubist for the Brass Arts Quintet.
Morris also created and now conducts Symphonia, a tuba/euphonium ensemble made up of professional players rather than students. A recent reunion concert billed as Tubas of Mass Destruction, held in 2007 at Tennessee Tech University, included over 100 current and former students from his 40 years of teaching. Throughout his teaching career Morris has encouraged his students to arrange and compose pieces of music for the ensemble, which was necessary in the early days of the group as there was virtually no repertoire in existence for them to play. Beside the pedagogical value, student works account for a large proportion of the ensemble's repertoire and have provided challenging material for later tuba/euphonium groups around the world.[6]