In his bowler hat, he is unmistakable on the streets of New York or Helsinki for that matter. Charlie Morrow: composer, performer, event-maker, trickster, technologist, seeker of ancient echoes. Actually, none of these labels quite captures Charlie. A man of ‘versatile unpredictability’ is how Village Voice described him way back in 1975. On a given day, the Voice explained, you might find Charlie pursuing research into the sounds made by fish, improvising on the Tibetan scale, writing an atonal work or an advertising jingle, or designing a circuit for his home recording studio. And all that was long before his 3-D Sound Cube, or the Fools Festival or even Toot ‘N Blink, a symphony performed by boats on Lake Michigan.
from Charlie Morrow: An Audio-Biography – Martin Goldenson, radio documentary
Throughout his career, Morrow has sought to bring experimental sound and music to a wider audience. His works have ranged from massive free public events, such as “Toot ’N Blink” for Chicago’s Lake Michigan and “Fanfare in the Air” for New York Harbor to innovative installations for the world’s leading institutions, including The Kennedy Space Center, The Empire State Building, The Louvre and The American Museum of Natural History.
He conceived and produced large-scale musical works for Lake Michigan (Toot’N Blink Chicago), Copenhagen (Copenhagen Waves), and New York Harbor. He co- designed Radio City Music Hall Production’s World Cup Soccer finale, LA as well as event/broadcasts for Copenhagen, Cultural Capital of Europe.
Morrow sound installations include Knowles Furniture Retrospective (Louvre Museum, Paris), General Gas Exhibit (Chicago Museum of Science and Industry), 2nd Acustica International (Whitney Museum) and an arctic sound room for the KAH, Bonn, Germany. He composed music for Nam Jun Paik’s Versailles Video Wall and programming for Paik’s Zapping Swatch Watch.
He is the founder and creative director of Charles Morrow Productions, LLC – the oldest sound branding agency.
Taking sound to the next level, Morrow most recently created MorrowSound® True3D, a state-of-the-art technology at the forefront of the rapidly expanding field of 3D sound. It has been showcased at venues and events around the world, such as The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, The 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, The Helsinki Design Week 2009 and 2016. It is in permanent use in hospitals, banks, corporate headquarters and public spaces.
A prolific composer, Morrow has numerous credits including a Cannes award-winning campaign for Diet Coke and the feature film soundtracks for Moonwalk 1 and Altered States. Toot! triple CD 2014 and Toot Too LP 2018 have received critical praise and airplay.
Morrow works and lives with Maija-Leena Remes, a translator, editor and writer, in Helsinki, Finland and Barton, Vermont.
He is an honorary member of Catalysti since 2018.
Member: American Federation of Musicians, Screen Actors Guild, Audio Engineering Soc., ASCAP, IAAPA,THEA (Themed Entertainment Association), TEOSTO, Society of Finnish Composers
