Morgan Bates

PhD Candidate and Cota-Robles Fellow Morgan Bates (they/them) is a musicologist, trumpeter, and educator at UCLA. Their dissertation project explores the performance realm of “drag vocality” across musical genres, positioning drag as an artistic tool for resistance under structures of cisheterosexism, white supremacy, and capitalism. They have presented their work at an array of conferences, including the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, IASPM-US, and Music and Moving Image annual gatherings. Outside of their musicological studies, Morgan serves as Lead Trumpet Teaching Artist for LA Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) at their Heart of Los Angeles teaching site. They have held professional positions with the Rogue Valley Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Oregon Brass Quintet, and the Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble, among numerous others. Morgan is a two-time winner of Dickinson College’s Concerto Competition and placed third in the chamber division of the 2023 International Trumpet Guild’s Ryan Anthony Memorial Trumpet Competition with the UCLA Trumpet Studio. Morgan also writes program notes for the Oregon Mozart Players and Tucson Symphony Orchestra and is an active anti-death penalty activist. Morgan holds dual master’s degrees in trumpet performance and musicology with a certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s with departmental honors in music from Dickinson College.