Born into a musical family, Michael currently accompanies, arranges, writes for magazines, and occasionally plays in West End theaters - he was for a time Musical Director of Bernstein's 'Wonderful Town'.
Michael teaches at Kingston University, and taught academic studies at Trinity College of Music for eight years. He has given BBC radio talks, including a series for Radio 3 entitled 'The Celeste-Player's Guide to the Orchestra' which in those far-off and gentler days was finally axed for excessive irreverence: the unheard episodes were later serialised in 'Classical Music' magazine and are currently being reworked into a book.
As solo or orchestral pianist he has travelled to over 20 different countries including seven visits to Japan, and contributed to several film soundtracks including the first 'Star Wars' movie and the imminent Canadian-made release 'Unlikely Heroes'.
His arrangements include orchestrations of Ravel piano pieces played in London's Royal Festival Hall by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin - these have recently been recorded (for the Japan-based Octavia CD label) by Vladimir Ashkenazy, conducting the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
Michael's researches on and performances of the music of Villa-Lobos has twice taken him to Rio de Janeiro, where he was a prize-winner (and the only non-Brazilian finalist) in the 1988 International Villa-Lobos Piano Competition.