Michael is is a New York City-based freelance pianist, composer, arranger, orchestrator, and music director. A North Carolina native, Mike graduated from Boston’s Berklee College of Music at age 18, then taught at Berklee for three years before moving to Nashville, Tennessee. After fifteen years working in Music City, he returned to the Northeast, where he has orchestrated music for television, podcast, and for productions at regional theatres around the country including Goodspeed Musicals, Barrington Stage Company, Signature Theatre, Bailiwick Chicago, and Ivoryton Playhouse.

Composers with whom Mike has collaborated as orchestrator include William Finn, Dennis DeYoung, Bruce Hornsby, Doug Besterman, Cinco Paul, Zina Goldrich, Paul Bogaev, Mike Reid, and Mel Marvin, among others. He has arranged and orchestrated recordings by Liza Minelli & Alan Cumming, Patrick Page, Christine Ebersole, Liz & Anne Hampton Callaway, Jose Feliciano, The Temptations, and the London Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras.

Mike served as dance arranger for the national tour of Big! The Musical, as music supervisor and vocal arranger for Make Me A Song: The Music of William Finn (Off-Broadway), as consultant and vocal arranger for Peggy Sue Got Married (Chicago & West End), and as music prep supervisor for Bombay Dreams on Broadway, and for Disney’s Broadway Hits at Royal Albert Hall. In addition, Mike has written and arranged for live entertainment productions on Royal Caribbean, Azamara, and Crystal cruise lines, and at numerous theme parks, including Dollywood, HersheyPark, Opryland USA, Fiesta Texas, Holiday World, and Silver Dollar City. He also composed and orchestrated the nine-minute score for an OmniRide attraction at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom.

An award-winning songwriter, Mike has written and arranged numerous jingles for national broadcast (Domino Sugar, The Nashville Network), has created music for corporate industrials (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, State Farm, Lexus), and has composed incidental music for several Shakespeare plays, including The Tempest, Othello, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night.
The proud father of Nashville-based cellist Melodie Chase, and vocalist Mandie Morris, Michael lives on New York’s Upper West Side with his patient cat, Groucho.