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The Roger Morris Music Collection was created by an amazing member of the Washington Recorder Society. Although he died in 2010, his legacy lives on in his hand-written transcriptions of Bach and other composers. Here’s his story.

Roger grew up in Los Angeles and earned his undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles and his master’s degree in urban and regional planning at the University of Southern California. For many years, he worked for the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Outside of work and family, Roger’s two reigning passions were volleyball and music. For many years, Roger conducted WRS’s Nova session. In addition, he led an Antiqua session on Bach that attracted many participants. He also was an excellent recorder player.

Roger brought his infectious exuberance, curiosity, and energy to WRS. He enjoyed conducting music and he really enjoyed transcribing music by hand for his Nova and Bach groups. These highly legible four-part transcriptions captured the essence of Bach and other composers at an intermediate playing level and always were enjoyable to perform.

After Roger and Myra retired to Santa Cruz, California, he continued his involvement with WRS by leading fall workshops for several years. He also shared his musical talents with the South Bay Recorder Society in San Jose.

As Roger lay dying, he sorted through his voluminous files of musical hand transcriptions. He and his wife Myra arranged to ship 90 pounds of music to WRS as his parting gift to us. They were initially housed in the WRS cabinet in the basement of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church. However, the WRS music had to be dispersed when the decision was made to move to Church of the Atonement.