Michael DeVard Morgan (September 17, 1957 – August 20, 2021) was an American conductor. He was music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony for 30 years. He was also music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California. Early life and education Michael Morgan was born and raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended public schools. His father Willie DeVard Morgan was a biologist; his mother Mabel Morgan was a health researcher. He began to play the piano at age 8, and by age 12 he was conducting two orchestras, one at MacFarland Junior High School, the other at his church. He attended McKinley Technology High School in D.C., and was the conductor of the D.C. Youth Orchestra. He attended Oberlin College Conservatory of Music but did not graduate. He spent a summer at the Oberlin College Conservatory 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. Career In 1979 he became apprentice conductor for the Buffalo Philharmonic. In 1980, he won first prize in the Hans Swarovsky International Conductors Competition in Vienna, Austria and 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, 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. He became music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony in 1991. He served as artistic director of the Oakland Youth Orchestra, music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, and artistic director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California. He also taught the graduate conducting course at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2002 and 2003 he taught conducting at the Tanglewood Music Center and led conducting workshops around the country. He taught a conducting workshop in Winnipeg, Canada and returned to South America as a guest conductor. As stage director he led productions of Bernstein's Mass at the Oakland East Bay Symphony, and a modern staging of Mozart's Don Giovanni at Festival Opera. As a chamber musician (piano) he appeared on the Chamber Music Alive series in Sacramento as well as occasional appearances in the Bay Area. As