Michael is an American composer based in London. He grew up in a musical fa… Read Full Bio ↴Michael is an American composer based in London. He grew up in a musical family studying piano and viola, and is a self-taught guitarist and bass player.

Michael’s interest in improvisation led him to work as pianist with saxophonist, Dick Heckstall-Smith’s band, Big Chief. At the same time, he began an apprenticeship at Matrix Studios, where he began collaborating with conga drummer, Reebop Kwaku Bah (Jimmy Cliff, Traffic, Can). He soon established himself as a sought after session musician and arranger working with artists including Orange Juice, Scritti Politti, Ian Dury, Soul II Soul, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Steve Winwood and Sting.

Michael’s first experience of writing film music was Beeban Kidron’s ‘Vroom’ starring Clive Owen and David Thewlis, followed by ‘The Bearskin - An Urban Fairytale’ starring Tom Waits. His music also featured in a number of high profile Channel 4 documentaries including the Bafta award-winning ‘J’accuse’ (C4) and ‘Battle of the Hood and Bismarck’.

Returning to the USA in 1998, Michael went on to compose music for documentaries on A&E, History Channel and PBS. During this time he received one regional Emmy Award and three nominations for Best Instrumental Music.

In 2001 he won a place at the Royal College of Music to study for a Masters in Composition for Screen where he was The Performing Rights Society’s Sir Arthur Bliss Memorial Scholar. On graduating he was awarded the coveted Joseph Horovitz Prize. From 2005-08, Michael was Area Leader in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music.

Several prime-time documentaries followed including ‘French Beauty’ for the ‘Storyville’ series (BBC2) and ‘E=mc2’ (Nova: ‘Einstein’s Big Idea’). More recently, Michael's work has been in teh area of film, writing original music for Richard Linklater’s ‘Me and Orson Welles’ starring Zac Efron and Claire Danes. He also features in the movie in his first acting role as Orson Welles’ band leader, Epstein.

He has also collaborated with the renowned DJ, Paul Oakenfold, as a co-composer and orchestrator on several feature film scores including the Japanese anime feature, ‘Vexille’, directed by Fumihiko Sori. Winner of Best Animated Feature at Philadelphia Film Festival 2008.

Other projects with Paul include orchestrations for Disney’s ‘G Force’ movie and collaboration on the score for the US top 10 movie ‘Nothing Like the Holidays, starring John Leguizamo and Alfred Molina.