Devon Gates
- Jazz
Devon Gates is a bassist, vocalist, and composer from Atlanta, Georgia, now based between Boston, MA and Brooklyn, NY. Through studying anthropology and jazz performance at Harvard University and Berklee College of Music, she has worked with Terri Lyne Carrington, Linda May Han Oh, Vijay Iyer, Danilo Perez, Claire Chase, Yosvanny Terry, and esperanza spalding, and has performed with Social Science, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Susie Ibarra, Michael Mayo, Alexa Tarantino, Immanuel Wilkins, Kenny Werner, and Tia Fuller. In 2020, she released her first EP, “Voice/Bass” on Bandcamp, followed by the release of single “skipped that step” in spring 2023. In 2022 her original composition “Don’t Wait” was published in Berklee Press’ “New Standards” collection of 101 lead sheets by female jazz composers.
For her work as a composer, Gates has won the inaugural Marion Brown Prize, a HerVoice prize (Chicago Acapella), and the 2024 First Commission award from ComposersNow, along with the Bohemian Prize (’23) and a John Green Prize (’22) from the Harvard Music Department, and a commission for the MassArt Museum (’22). Her pieces have been programmed by the Harvard Choruses, Chicago Acapella, Bowdoin College, and National Sawdust. She is a Mutual Mentorship for Musicians fellow and Betty Carter Jazz Ahead alum, and has performed at Joe’s Pub, the Monterey Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival, Winter JazzFest, the Kennedy Center, Roulette Intermedium, and SFJazz. She performed her first tour in Asia (Ulaanbataar, Mongolia, and Osaka and Tokyo, Japan) in August 2023, followed by a fall 2023 term abroad in London, UK at the Royal Academy of Music, and a January 2024 Italy tour.
Her Harvard Opportunes arrangement and live solo performance of “Hard Place” by H.E.R. went viral on TikTok, garnering the attention of Michael Buble and Jason Derulo, and later winning her a CARA Acapella Award for Best Soloist on the 2022 studio album recording. She also works in varied interdisciplinary settings, from scoring a short film for the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute exhibition on seminal ethnomusicologist Dr. Eileen Southern, to collaborating with the Harvard Ballet Company to set dance to her original music. She is currently developing a string quartet in collaboration with playwright Phillip Howze, to be premiered in February 2024 as part of his theatrical work, “Self Portraits” (Bushwick Starr, Brooklyn, NYC).
