Roye E. Wates, 89, of Brookline, Massachusetts, retired professor of music at Boston University, died of pancreatic cancer on March 9, 2023. Professor Wates attended Birmingham-Southern College (B.A., English, 1954) and Yale University (Ph.D., History of Music, 1965). At Boston University, she first taught in the College of Arts and Sciences' Division of General Education (the University's original core curriculum) from 1962–1975, was then named a University Professor (1975–1978), Chairman of Religion and the Arts in the Division of Theological and Religious Studies (1976–1982), and professor of music in the College of Arts and Sciences until her retirement in 2015. She was named Boston University's Teacher-Scholar of the Year in 2000. A founding member of the Mozart Society of America, where she served on the board of directors from 2009 until 2015, she was the author of "Mozart: An Introduction to the Music, the Man, and the Myths," a book published in 2010. During her decades of teaching non-major courses, Prof. Wates wrote her own (unpublished) textbooks to avoid the non-historical, elementary approach commonly associated with such courses. Her book on Mozart exemplified her approach, and during summer courses at Tanglewood her adult students were provided with examples of it as well.

Born in Birmingham, AL, on November 21, 1933 to the late Roy and Pearle Harper Wates of Birmingham, AL., Roye was introduced to civic, church, and social engagement at an early age. Her mother, an adviser to Wendell Willkie in 1940 and later to Dwight Eisenhower, worked tirelessly against racism in Birmingham in the 1930s and '40s; served as Co-Director of Civil Defense for the 13 Southern States and later as Director of the Alabama Heart Association. Like her own mother, Mrs. Wates knew the bible from start to finish and for decades taught an adult bible class at Birmingham's First Methodist Church.

Roye's older sister, the late Rev. Dr. Florence W. Pert of New York, was the first woman ordained in the 360-year history of the Collegiate Churches of New York and the first woman to preach from the pulpit of Marble Collegiate Church, where its minister, Norman Vincent Peale, named her Director of Lay Activities. Dr. Pert focused on increasing the role of laity and especially of women. As a board member of the ecumenical ministry Faith@Work, she spearheaded a national effort to foster leadership positions for women in ministry and lay activities. Through workshops around the country under the auspices of Dr. Peale's School of Practical Christianity, she and others trained hundreds of clergy in spiritual renewal.

Roye was a long-time congregant at Trinity Church Boston where she served as a lector, worked on capital fund drives, and served on the pastoral needs committee. There are no surviving relatives.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Trinity Church, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, or boston.baroque. For guestbook please visit www.lawlerfuneralhome.com.