Meeting Speaker for Sept. 10, 2012 - Michael Morgan
Posted
on Sep 4, 2012
Currently in his 14th year as Music Director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Morgan was born in Washington, D.C., where he attended public schools and began conducting at the age of 12. While a student at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he spent a summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. There he was a student of Gunther Schuller and Seiji Ozawa, and it was at that time that he first worked with Leonard Bernstein.
In 1980, he became Assistant Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, under Leonard Slatkin. His operatic debut was in 1982 at the Vienna State Opera in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. In 1986, Sir Georg Solti chose him to become the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for five years under both Solti and Daniel Barenboim. In 1986 he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic. As a guest conductor he has appeared with most of America's major orchestras as well as the New York City Opera, St. Louis Opera Theater and Washington National Opera.
In 2005, he received two national awards by major music associations. He was honored by the San Francisco Chapter of The Recording Academy with the 2005 Governors Award for Community Service. On the opposite coast, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) chose Morgan as one of its five 2005 Concert Music Award recipients. The San Francisco Foundation has honored him with one of its Community Leadership Awards and he received an Honorary Doctorate from Holy Names University.
He makes many appearances in the nation's schools each year, and is highly regarded as a champion of arts education and minority access to the arts. He makes his home in Oakland with his mother and sister.