Michael Chadwick
Composer, Educator, Performer
I have been involved with music for almost fifty years.
You read that correctly. I honestly don’t recall learning how to read music because I was too young to remember it. I started piano lessons at age three, took up the French Horn in sixth grade, began singing opera in college, and stage directed my first opera, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in 2005.
I am a Music Theory nerd
What is Music Theory? Think of it like music engineering. It’s a vitally important part of any good performer’s education, and it’s critically important for composers. Understanding how one sound at a given pitch relates to the sounds around it, and understanding what role in tonality that a certain note plays, is just the beginning of Music Theory. Training to be a musical performer without learning theory is like someone training to be a surgeon without taking any anatomy courses.
I earned my Master’s Degree in Music with a specialization in Music Theory from Stephen F. Austin State University. I pursued this degree in hopes of becoming a more efficient and effective composer, and I am so very grateful to my professors that gave me that start. I encourage everyone to create music in whatever way they can, and I especially encourage them to learn more about Music Theory so that they can do so to the best of their ability.
Michael Alexander Chadwick
Composer
Michael spent decades as a vocalist and stage director in opera and oratorio choruses around the U.S. and abroad. Some of the companies he has worked with include Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the Opera Festival of New Jersey, the Spoleto Festival USA and Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi, Princeton Pro Musica, Fort Worth Opera, Princeton Opera, and many others.
He wrote his first piece, a lullaby for his cousin’s newborn child, while an undergraduate Music Education major at Westminster Choir College. Performing and directing took over for a while, but never stopped him arranging or composing music here and there for various ensembles. During the pandemic in 2020 he decided to give original composition a greater focus, and to that end enrolled in a Music Theory graduate program at Stephen F. Austin State University, which he completed in the spring of 2023. Since then, he has been creating original compositions in a variety of mediums.
In addition to composition, Michael is a music educator, directs a professional caroling ensemble called The Village Carolers, and maintains one of the largest supertitle rental libraries in the world.