Michael grew up in a homeschooled family in the suburbs of Kansas City. He started learning the piano at 8, when his mother noticed an ancient piano being discarded in their neighborhood. He was classically taught by another homeschooling mother for 3 years.

 

At age 11, Michael's family moved to a rural area, where boredom and Ben Folds drove him to more regular practice and experimentation on the piano. He bought a drum kit and paid for drum lessons from mowing lawns, and started playing the electric guitar and bass that his older brothers had left collecting dust. 

 

He began playing organ and piano for his local church congregations at 13, expanding his experience with classical religious music. He started a contemporary band as a lead singer and keyboardist at 15 and won multiple community band contests. His band won a local talent show when the showrunners asked for a second performance due to equipment failure, and all members switched instruments. 

 

In college, he continued his classical study by hiring out to vocal students as a piano accompanist for examinations, and began playing onstage for ComedySportz and ImprovBroadway comedy clubs in Provo, Utah. Expanding his own role as a performer, he took professional vocal lessons and became a regular onstage player at clubs and paid corporate events. 

 

Today, Michael composes, records, and performs music with his beautiful wife, Erin at their local church and for their contemporary group Lunarchase. 

 

His teaching expertise has come from volunteering with children and youth choirs at church. Michael's teaching philosophy is to use familiar concepts to kids and teens to help expand their knowledge. He believes in building a classical foundation while using genre and period-spanning examples to inspire creativity, fun, and the joy of mastering instruments and the voice. 

 

Michael's own life experience being neurodivergent, as well as 3 neurodivergent kids of his own, equip him with communication styles and methods to accelerate learning in the way each student needs.