Charles R. Gates

Charles Gates, professor of music at the University of Mississippi, has been on the faculty since 1988. He served as director of the University's Academic Support Center from 1999 to 2005, and as music department chair from 2005 to 2013. 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 ITG conference held at Louisiana State University, and as chair of the ITG Solo Performance Competition at the conference held in Goteborg, Sweden. He serves each year as an adjudicator at the National Trumpet Competition at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and is currently a member of the NTC Advisory Committee. He has also presented at conferences of the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, the National Academic Advising Association, and the C.S. Lewis North American Faculty Forum Conference.

In July 2005, Centaur Records released a compact disk recorded by Mr. Gates with Stacy Rodgers, Fantasie Brilliante: A Cornet Retrospective, which 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 Mr. Rodgers, was released by Centaur in 2008. An interview/article "Charles Gates: Streben nach dem Bel Canto" was published in the November 2010 issue of the German brass journal Sonic: Magazin für Holz- und Blechblasinstrumente. Professional ensemble experience includes the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus (Ohio), the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Tennessee Summer Symphony, and the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra (Lafayette, Louisiana). He currently performs with the Meridian Symphony Orchestra (principal trumpet), the Mississippi Brass (the faculty brass quintet at the University of Mississippi), and as a free-lance musician in Memphis. He is also active as a soloist and clinician throughout the region.