Frederick G. Morgan (8 April 1940 - 16 April 1999) was an Australian
recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
maker.
Life and career
Morgan first played recorder at age 12 in the family's home in
Mentone, Victoria
Mentone is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 21 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Kingston local government area. Mentone recorded a population of 13,197 at the .
It is known loc ...
, Australia. After studying commercial art at
Melbourne Technical College
RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia.
Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scienc ...
in 1959, he went to work at the Pan Recorder factory where he became enamored with the recorder.
The Frederick Morgan Recorder Consort performed between 1964 and 1969, often accompanied on keyboard by his first wife, Jan. He appeared in the Melbourne Bach Festival, with the Tudor Choristers and the Melbourne Chorale. With Carl Dolmetsch and the Paul McDermott String Quartet, he performed Bach's Fourth Brandenburg Concerto in 1966 at Wilson Hall,
Melbourne University
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...
. He continued to perform into 1970s with his second wife Ann Murphy, a harpsichordist.
He won a
Churchill Fellowship
Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts (WCMT) are three independent but related living memorials to Sir Winston Churchill, based in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They exist for the purpose of administering Churchill Fellowships, a ...
to study Recorder Manufacture and Usage in Europe in 1970. There he studied instruments in museums and private collections and met the recorder virtuoso
Frans Brüggen
Franciscus ("Frans") Jozef Brüggen (30 October 1934 – 13 August 2014) was a Dutch Conducting, conductor, recorder player and baroque flautist.
Biography
Born in Amsterdam, Brüggen was the last of the nine children of August Brüggen, a textile ...
, who purchased a Morgan recorder in 1973. When Frans toured Australia with his
Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in 1985, they performed on original instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries, except for Frans who performed on his Morgan recorder.
Morgan set up a workshop in Amsterdam in 1978, but returned to
Daylesford, Victoria
Daylesford is a spa town located in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, within the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, approximately 108 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. First established in 1852 as a gold-mini ...
in 1980. His instruments became much sought after and treasured by performers around the world. He is particularly noted for his role in developing the Ganassi recorder, and documenting the 17th century recorders found in the
Rosenborg Castle
Rosenborg Castle ( da, Rosenborg Slot) is a renaissance architecture, renaissance castle located in Copenhagen, Denmark. The castle was originally built as a country summerhouse in 1606 and is an example of Christian IV of Denmark, Christian IV's ...
in Denmark.
Morgan died in a car accident in 1999, but his workshop continues to produce partially finished bodies to be finished by other recorder makers, including Nikolaj Ronimus and Jacqueline Sorel.
Mollenhauer has licensed the name to be used with their Morgan Denner series of altos.
References
* Atherton, Michael, ''Australian made Australian played - handcrafted musical instruments from didjeridu to synthesiser'', 1990, New South Wales University Press, Kensington
Further reading
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Fred
1940 births
1999 deaths
Recorder makers
Australian recorder players
Musicians from Melbourne
20th-century flautists
People from Mentone, Victoria
RMIT University alumni