Charles R. Gates

Charles Gates, department chair and professor of music at the University of Mississippi, has been on the faculty since 1988, and served as director of the University's Academic Support Center from 1999 to 2005. He holds the B.M.E degree in instrumental music education from Louisiana State University and the M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in trumpet performance and literature from Ohio State University. He has served the International Trumpet Guild as coordinator of the "Festival of Trumpets" concert at the 1991 ITG conference held at Louisiana State University, and as chair of the ITG Solo Performance Competition at the 1997 conference held in Goteborg, Sweden. He has also served as an adjudicator at the National Trumpet Competition (1996; 2001-2009) at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and is currently a member of the NTC Advisory Committee. In July 2005, Centaur Records released a compact disk recorded by Gates and Stacy Rodgers in the University's Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts. The CD, Fantasie Brilliante: A Cornet Retrospective, includes twelve selections that provide an overview of cornet compositional styles and performance techniques as they have evolved from 1840 to the late 20th century. A second cornet CD, Twelve Celebrated Fantaisies and Airs Varies by Joseph Jean-Baptiste Laurent Arban (1825-1889), also recorded with Rodgers, was released by Centaur in July 2008. Charles Gates enjoys riding his bike to work, working in the yard, reading, and activities with his family.