The Department of Music remembers the life of Robert P. Morgan. Morgan passed away on November 17, 2021, after a career as a leading scholar and teacher of 19th- and 20th-century music.
Morgan was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and majored in music at Princeton University. He studied composition under Andrew Imbrie at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received an MA in 1958. After returning to Princeton for further study under Roger Sessions and Edward T. Cone, earning an MFA in 1960, he continued compositional work under a grant from the German government (1960-62). He received a PhD from Princeton in 1969 and taught at Temple University until 1978, when he was recruited to the University of Chicago. At UChicago he assumed the theory position vacated by Leonard B. Meyer, while simultaneously anchoring the program in 20th-century musicology. In 1987, Morgan earned the university-wide Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. In 1989, he was appointed Professor of Music Theory in Yale University’s Department of Music, where he served until his retirement in 2006, including terms as Director of Graduate Studies and as Chair.
To learn more about the life and legacy of Robert P. Morgan, please visit the Yale University Department of Music website.