About this Artist

Marcus Norris’ first foray into making music came in the form of producing rap beats on pirated software installed on a Windows 98 computer that he Macgyvered together from spare parts while lying on the floor of his childhood bedroom. Though he came to composing concert music later, he transferred that same imagination and ingenuity to writing music of all kinds. Marcus has been called a “New Musical Talent in our Midst” by Chicago’s N’digo magazine and has achieved a number of successes, including being awarded the prestigious Cota-Robles fellowship for pursuing his PhD at UCLA, being chosen in 2020 for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s National Composers Intensive, and winning first prize in the Southeastern Composers League Competition in 2017. His violin concerto, GLORY,opened to three sold-out performances when premiered by the Jackson Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and then was subsequently performed in Guangzhou, China, later that year. His dance suite I Tried So Hard for You premiered in Havana in 2018, closely following the Russian String Orchestra premiere of My Idols Are Dead in Moscow. In 2020, he founded South Side Symphony – the only orchestra that would perform “Back That Thang Up” on the same concert with Beethoven.

For more information on Marcus and his music, visit www.MarcusNorris.com and www.SouthSideSymphony.org.