Morris was born in
Springfield, Illinois, on September 7, 1977. He was raised in
Park Forest, before moving with his mother and brother to
Renton, Washington in November 1992. He began playing the violin at age 8 in the Park Forest public schools; as a teenager he studied with Walter Schwede, the former associate
concertmaster of the
Seattle Symphony and professor of violin at the
University of Washington and
Western Washington University. He graduated from
Renton High School in 1996. He studied at
Xavier University of Louisiana with the intention to study law, but was encouraged by his violin teacher, Rachel Jordan, to pursue music more seriously. Thereafter, he transferred to the
University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he earned his bachelor of music degree. While there, he founded the Young Eight, a string octet of Black musicians who toured the United States from 2002 until 2012 with Morris as artistic director. Morris earned a master of music degree from the
Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he studied violin with
Lynn Chang and chamber music with Irina Muresanu. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the
Butler School of Music at the
University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Daniel Ching, first violinist of the
Miro Quartet. == Performance career ==