 While at McGill, Norris had been invited to form an experimental orchestra of secondary school students, and this work successfully expanded until by 1939 he was made Director of instrumental Studies in the Orchestral Scheme of the Protestant Board of School Commissioners of the City of Montreal.He also became musical director for the Montreal West United Church of Canada.Norris volunteered at St. Helen's School, Dunham, Quebec, in the 1940s and 1950s.