When Larry Morton, chairman of the board of Hal Leonard, the world's largest source for music publications, was invited to speak to a group of students from the College of Music, little did he know he also would receive a degree over 40 years in the making.

Morton was awarded his master's degree in music composition in a surprise ceremony on March 6. Having left UNT early to pursue his career, he went on to take part in some of the biggest innovations in the music business.

"I'm extremely humbled and honored because this whole experience feels like coming home to me," Morton says.

Turning Point

Morton first developed a love for music at the age of five, when he started improvising and composing at the piano. It became his passion, and he went on to earn his bachelor's degree in music theory from Eastern Illinois University. He then moved to Denton to study music composition at the UNT College of Music.

"UNT and the College of Music were really the turning point that set me on course for my career," he says.

Morton left UNT in the summer of 1984 just before graduating to pursue a career in Los Angeles as a studio musician and arranger. While he completed all his coursework, he was running out of time and money, so through some connections with musician friends, he left before fully completing his degree requirements.

"I had $220 and a beat-up Ford Tempo and left for L.A. I had buddies with real jobs, so I couch surfed," he says.

He understands that often music students have doubts about their career path after graduation.

"Non-music students have these clear pathways for their career. Then they ask you, 'Well, what are you going to do?' We all go through that," he says.

But then, his big break came during a studio session.

Lucky Day

In Los Angeles during the mid-1980s, Morton worked in studios performing as a drum machine and synthesizer programmer.

Luck, as Morton defines it, is "what happens when preparation meets opportunity." And luck was on his side one day.

He was in the recording studio programming a synthesizer when Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of Roland Corporation, paid a visit.

Kakehashi is the inventor of MIDI, sequencers, drum machines, digital samplers, digital drum sets and many other digital music products. While visiting, he wanted to meet Morton and see what he was working on with his instruments. Kakehashi quickly took him under his wing, and Morton became one of Roland's first employees in 1984. He started out as a product specialist and quickly became vice president of Roland at age 29.

"It was incredible, because it opened my eyes to what technology can do for music," Morton says.

After a while, Morton wanted to return to the Midwest and start a family. In 1990, he joined Hal Leonard, a then small Wisconsin-based company that has since become the world's largest music publishing company. If you've ever taken piano lessons or played an instrument in school, chances are you have played from a Hal Leonard sheet music book.

In addition to printed publications, Hal Leonard has led the way in digital music technology, developing SheetMusicDirect.com in 1997, four years before the debut of iTunes.

"We've always had a culture of innovation and trying to get ahead," he says.

In December 2023, Hal Leonard announced a deal to merge with Muse Group, the largest digital sheet music and music technology company in the world. The company reaches over 400 million consumers via its website and apps like MuseScore Studio, Audacity and Ultimate Guitar, among others.

Master of Music

Now chairman of Hal Leonard and a board director of Muse Group, Morton recently joined the UNT College of Music Advancement Board.

On a visit to Hal Leonard's company headquarters in Milwaukee, College of Music Dean John Richmond learned that Morton was just a few credits shy of completing his master's degree in music composition at UNT.

"It's not uncommon in the College of Music to have students who are so accomplished and so promising, and whose trajectory is so steep and so fast, that they slip away from us before they get every 'jot and tittle' of their degree completed," Richmond says.

Richmond also learned that in 1984, the same year he left UNT, Morton wrote, performed and recorded his award-winning one-act opera titled "From the Mantlepiece."

With that knowledge came an opportunity to reexamine the qualifications for Morton's degree. His transcript showed two incompletes for thesis courses MUSI 595A and MUSIB, or what is today considered MUGC 5950. The College of Music determined that his one-act opera more than exceeded his thesis requirement.

In a surprise private ceremony in March with Dean Richmond, UNT Provost Michael McPherson, Joseph Klein, chair of the Division of Composition Studies, and Warren Henry, senior associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Music, as well as Morton's fiancé, Melissa Welborn, Morton was awarded his Master's of Arts degree in music composition -- nearly 41 years later.

"I'm speechless! I don't know what to say," Morton says, admiring his degree. "It was one of my biggest, greatest regrets that I didn't get to do it. So, look at that!"

Klein says this degree is long overdue. "He has been an exceptional representative of the University of North Texas, and we're very happy and honored to be a part of this day."