In addition to his work as an opera/symphonic conductor, Michael is an accomplished fortepianist and researcher. Michael attended Cornell University as a Graduate Fellow where he worked with renowned fortepianist Malcolm Bilson. He then went on to earn a DMA in historical performance practices at McGill University in the class of distinguished fortepianist-scholar Tom Beghin. Since 2015 Michael is an Associate Researcher at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium, where he works as a part of a team of specialists on a project about Beethoven’s pianos, historical technologies, and aesthetics. He has been a guest lecturer at the Royaumont Fondation in Paris, France where he as presented on the music of Chopin. His scholarly articles on the music of Beethoven and Chopin have been published by Keyboard Perspectives (of Cornell University) and the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw. Michael is also a contributing reviewer for the online blog Schmopera.
“Frédéric Kalkbrenner as an Alumnus of the Paris Conservatoire”
Published by Keyboard Perspectives, Yearbook of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, 2021
Further details and ordering information here
Beethoven’s French Piano
Contributor to Beethoven’s French Piano by Tom Beghin (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
Further details and ordering information here.
Follow Michael’s coverage of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s productions on Schmopera.
Beethoven and his Foreign Pianos
Part of the Research Cluster “Declassifying the Classics”
Further details about the project can be found here
"Imagining Speech: Elsner, Polish Prosody, and Poetic Pianism"
Published by The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw, Poland, 2017.
Further details and ordering information here
"Dire un morceau de musique": The Language Behind Chopin's Music
DMus dissertation, McGill University, 2016
WorldCat catalog details here
"Signs of Frustration in the First Movement of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, Opus 106"
Published by Keyboard Perspectives, Yearbook of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, 2014
Further details and ordering information here