a guest conductor he appeared with most of America's major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, St. Louis Opera Theater, the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, and Washington National Opera. In 2012, he was named music director of the Bear Valley Music Festival. Awards In 2005 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. ASCAP further honored Oakland East Bay Symphony in 2006 with its Award for Adventurous Programming. The San Francisco Foundation honored him with one of its Community Leadership Awards, and he received an honorary doctorate from Holy Names University. Personal life Morgan was openly gay. He said that "Being a classical musician, being a conductor, being black, being gay – all of these things put you on the outside, and each one puts you a little further out than the last one" and that "you get accustomed to constructing your own world because there are not a lot of clear paths to follow and not a lot of people that are just like you". A private person, he lived with his mother and sister. For the last seven years of his life he was on daily kidney dialysis. He received a kidney transplant in May 2021, but contracted an infection, and died on August 20, 2021 at the age of 63. Footnotes See also Black conductors External links Michael Morgan bio Oakland East Bay Symphony Oakland Youth Orchestra Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra Oakland’s Symphony Season Opens, Mixing It Up 1957 births 2021 deaths People from Oakland, California American male conductors (music) African-American classical musicians African-American conductors (music) LGBT classical musicians Music directors 21st-century American conductors (music) 21st-century American male musicians 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century American male musicians Classical musicians from Washington, D.C. LGBT African Americans American gay musicians 20th-century African-American musicians 21st-century African-American musicians LGBT people from Washington, D.C. LGBT people from California 20th-century LGBT people 21st-century LGBT people