This collection is presented by D. Kern Holoman, their eldest son. 

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He was an enthusiastic writer and public speaker. Katherine, usually called Kaye, was an activist on behalf of public welfare, largely through her work with the North Carolina General Federation of Women's Clubs and the North Carolina Conference for Social Service. Both Kaye and Kern were lay leaders of Edenton Street Methodist Church. In addition to their own writings and public addresses, their archive includes genealogical materials from the Herring, Highsmith, and Holoman families, notably autobiographical essays from J. Henry Highsmith, a prominent educator; Kate M. Herring Highsmith, journalist and clubwoman; and Kate Holoman Johnson on her parents George Dorsey Holoman and Mary Ann Boyce of Northampton County, North Carolina. Principal materials include genealogies, press clippings, and personal recollections of descendants of Rufus K. Herring and Paulina Westbrook Herring of Sampson County, and descendants of George Dorsey Holoman of Northampton County and his son Dallas Holoman, Sr. Katherine Holoman's archive includes press clippings, public addresses and manuscript histories, and a complete run of the North Carolina Clubwoman during her presidency (1981–1982). Kern Holoman's archive consist of his Memoirs (2010) and their manuscript sources; military records from his service in World War II (1942–1947) and as a member of the North Carolina National Guard (1947–1977); press clippings and documents concerning Boylan-Pearce, Inc., notably its move to Cameron Village in 1955 and its sale in August 1980; records of his work for Edenton Street Methodist Church; and manuscripts of his public presentations to his Sandwich Club, the Rotary Club, and similar organizations. A collection of travel diaries, 1928–2005, documents journeys of Eugenia Herring (1928), Kern's sojourns in Stuttgart (1946) and India (1982), Kaye and Kern's European grand tour (1956) and journeys during their retirement 1980–1997), and Kern's journeys with his companion Jacqueline Harper (1999–2005). Heritage photographs include studio portraits of the Herrings of Sampson County and Raleigh, and the Highsmiths of Raleigh; portraits of the authors, Kaye and Kern; and Kern's wartime photographs from Paris, Weinheim, and Stuttgart.

I had gotten to know him in 1999, as the campus was trying valiantly to help calm the distressing wake left behind the collapse of the Sacramento Symphony. (See Robert Commanday’s fine piece “Trouble in River City,” San Francisco Classical Voice, 24 August 1999). Our effort more or less failed; Michael’s succeeded. He had undertaken to keep orchestral music alive in the city by agreeing to conduct, probably for little or no money, the new Sacramento Philharmonic. We bonded over lunch by the freeway one day that October, and for two decades kept to the tradition of meeting as often as possible as he zoomed from Oakland to Sacramento and back. 

Michael was a no-nonsense, businesslike conductor, wielding an unusually long baton in a gestural vocabulary I equated with the 1950s and ’60s: think Charles Munch, but in Davis conducting circles we thought of it as the Jonathan Elkus look. His gaze, like Munch’s, was powerful and reassuring, and the musicians could count on him for all the necessaries. He was diplomatic and discreet, almost to excess—virtually never revealing the back story or the slings and arrows of his obviously fraught negotiations to keep Oakland and Sacramento, also the West Bay Opera, alive and well. For instance I tried to spar with him over a Sac Phil concert that included a Brahms symphony played with six violas—wholly inadequate—but with an extra “assistant principal” French horn. Other than assuring me that the extra horn was a deeply ingrained privilege in Sacramento (and many other places), he just shrugged, in his we-do–the-best-we-can-with-what-we-have manner.

I’d wish his Schumann had more richesse or his Mahler more rubato, and then he’d knock your socks off with a Rite of Spring that seemed like child’s play. Or the time he began to do a mean samba step there on the podium, in—was it?—Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit. Or the dazzling 2014 Il Trovatore, with a struggling company being held together by ... Michael himself.

The standard press take on Michael Morgan was that he was among the last students of Leonard Bernstein, or that he was the first openly gay black conductor. The usual stuff. But to me he was from the beginning a caring soul, willing to help out wherever and whenever help was needed, a crusader for his and our communities under the banner of classical music. To me he was a hero.

The students loved him. I asked him over for various visits to listen to and coach the orchestra and, soon enough, to cover the sabbatical I took in the winter and spring of 2002. The program of February 10, 2002, consisted of Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor overture, the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, and the Dvořák D-minor Symphony—one of my very favorites. He also coached Ken Veit, our top conducting student at the time. I was back in Davis in time for the concert, which had gone pretty well for that period, and went backstage to thank him. He was still sweating, his clothes wet through. “Gosh,” he said: “you have to work pretty hard to pull that bunch along.” 

Michael took a parental interest in the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts from the beginning, and his and our thoughts soon turned to moving into the hall in late 2002 and learning how to play in it. This coincided with a plan to “tune” the hall with the acoustician, Ron McCay, and his staff. We would play for several evenings in the new facility while they measured reverberation patterns, etc., and made adjustments in the canopies, draperies, and so on. So we called the orchestra back to campus on the very first day the dorms were opened, and played in the room every night until the ribbon cutting ceremony. I would conduct and Michael would listen; then we’d switch places—consulting with McCay at every break. Michael never mentioned a fee, and when (after the fact) I proposed an honorarium, he declined, saying he’d had too much fun. 

He covered another sabbatical with a concert on May 21, 2006, with Joey Abad, alto saxophone. The program was  Chabrier's Fête polonaise from Le Roi malgré lui, Ibert's Concertino da camera for alto sax, and the Brahms First Symphony. 

He kept his hand in with the UCDSO after that, showing up from time to time that first season to take a rehearsal or coach the conductors. At one point he incorporated a mildly racial remark into his drilling of the violinists in Mahler’s Fourth, then glanced at me across the room and winked. He helped with the orchestra many more times while it was under my direction, then came to the rescue for one program later on, in November 2018, that I was forced to cancel. The musicians were always thrilled to see him. Some of the conductors did rather good Michael Morgan imitations.

Our paths crossed less often after the first Mondavi seasons: a pre-concert day surrounding his performance of the Berlioz Requiem in Oakland (2014), meals when we could, and as many Sacramento Philharmonic concerts as I could make—covering some of them for San Francisco Classical Voice. One of these was with the remarkable violinist Rachel Barton Pine. I learned that their association went back to Chicago, and that they were genuinely kindred spirits, especially where encouraging the young was concerned. It was in keeping with the views of both of them that Pine became a familiar figure coaching the Davis High School orchestras.

Off the podium Michael was abstemious, tactful to a fault, and very private. My wife and I were happy to know his mother a little and to learn something of their lives in Washington, not too far from where Betty grew up. We loved hearing him talk of living in Oakland among his musicians and fans. I've often thought of how lucky we are in Northern California to have had both Calvin Simmons and Michael Morgan as examples of how the good life might be. 

 My mailbox this morning was filled, here in France, with the sad tidings of his demise sent by the UCDSO musicians who had known him. “Too young, too talented,” wrote my colleague and former student, the composer Laurie San Martin. “I have such fond memories of working with him.” Angelo Moreno, the noted Kapellmeister at Davis High, wrote of “so many great memories of him and the UCDSO. I have followed his work ever since then. Thank you so much for exposing us all to him. As young musicians, those were experiences we never forgot. I know you are feeling this loss today.” 

That, but also the uplifting sense that I’ve seldom known such a giver of self to the  ideals of philharmonia.