Megan Bailey

Visiting Assistant Professor of Trumpet

An experienced and versatile trumpeter, Megan Bailey is seasoned in all facets of trumpet playing from opera to jazz, wind band to solo repertoire. Megan currently serves as visiting assistant professor of Trumpet at Northern Illinois University. Additionally, she maintains an active freelance performing schedule in the Chicagoland area and throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Megan has performed as a member of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Corporon since 2018 and with the Turtle Creek Chorale since 2017. She also serves as an associate member of the Dallas Opera Orchestra and has fulfilled substitute musician roles with Dallas Winds, the Monroe Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Symphony, and the Richardson Symphony.

Notable performances include appearances at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago on three separate occasions as well as featured recitals at the Texas Music Educators Conference in 2017 and 2018 with the Dallas-based brass dectet, Center Stage Brass. Megan was an invited performer on the New Works Recital at the 2022 International Women's Brass Conference. She was a featured soloist with the Lone Star Wind Orchestra in April 2023, and in early 2024 she returned to the orchestra pit with the Dallas Opera Orchestra in their production of Strauss's Elektra. She can be heard on the GIA label Composer's Collection discs featuring the music of John Mackey and Michael Daugherty as well as "Taylor Made," "Inventions," Discoveries" and "Hope."

Megan has been published in the International Trumpet Guild Journal. Additionally, she presented her research project, Hearing Aids for Musicians, at the 2022 College Music Society Southern Regional Conference, the 2022 International Women's Brass Conference, and the 2023 International Trumpet Guild Conference.

Beyond her teaching, performing, and research activities, Megan is a board member for the Chicago-based Arts and Music Program (CAMP), an organization that provides musical instruction to inner-city and disadvantaged youth. Additionally, she serves as a contributing editor for the International Women's Brass Conference publication, Noteworthy. Megan also volunteers her services as a bugler for Taps Across America, sounding Taps at memorial services for fallen veterans.

Prior to joining the faculty at NIU, she served as assistant professor of music at Delta State University. Megan completed her bachelor of music degree at DePaul University, her master of music degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her doctor of musical arts degree at the University of North Texas. Her private instructors have been Brad Dawson, Tage Larsen, Matt Lee, Charles Daval and John Holt.