Dr. Michael Griffith (University of Wyoming – EUA)
Dr. Griffith is a published composer and ASCAP member, and has contributed to the Conductors' Guild Journal, its Podium Notes Newsletter and New Music Panels, and to conferences of the College Music Society and the Wyoming Music Educators' Association. He has also been a guest conductor at the University of Cincinnati, the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill, University of Missouri, Iowa State University, Pacific Lutheran University, Millikin University, Michigan State University, and the University of Colorado. Guest conducting engagements have ranged from New York's Times Square to Rio de Janeiro to many orchestras along the Front Range of the Rockies, including Denver's Mercury Ensemble, the Ft. Collins Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony, Opera Fort Collins, Boulder's Colorado Music Festival, the Powder River Symphony, Longmont Symphony, and Broomfield Symphony. With younger musicians he has conducted All-State and other clinic ensembles in China, Canada, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. He has been a visiting professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and at Shanghai University, was twice elected a Top Ten Teacher by University of Wyoming graduating classes, taught the University of Wyoming's London Semester, led three University of Wyoming cultural tours of New York City, taught at the University of Wyoming's Saturday University in Jackson Hole, was nominated for an Ellbogen Teaching Award, and received a "Thumbs-Up" award from the Unversity of Wyoming Arts & Sciences student council for "outstanding positive contributions" to the university. He is a past president of the Conductors Guild, a winner of an ASCAP/American Symphony Orchestra League Award for Adventurous Programming, and a winner of The American Prize in Orchestral Programming, the Maestro Vytautas Marijosius Award.Given that, it is no surprise that the University of Wyoming Symphony was chosen as one of only three college orchestras to participate in the 2010 Ford Made in America commissioning program. In 2007 he led the Symphony on a week-long tour of Bolivia, and he conducted the University of Wyoming Chamber Orchestra at the 2009 All-Northwest convention of the Music Educators National Conference. Broadcast performances include the Nigerian Broadcasting Company, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Minnesota Public Radio, Nebraska Public Radio, University of Illinois Public Radio, KUSF San Francisco, Wyoming Public Television, and Wyoming Public Radio. He has conducted performances with renowned guest artists such as harpsichordist Igor Kipnis, pianist Christopher O'Riley, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, cellist Carter Brey, and violinist Benny Kim. Dr. Griffith inherited his musical talent from his grandmother Rose Brandt, a leading soprano in the Vienna Volksoper early in the 20th century. He grew up in Cleveland, where he studied oboe with Harvey McGuire and Robert Zupnic of The Cleveland Orchestra. His conducting teachers were Charles Bruck at the world-renowned Pierre Monteux School; Kenneth Bloomquist and Dennis Burkh at Michigan State University; and Giora Bernstein at the University of Colorado, where he earned his doctorate.