ABBA

Bassoonist who started out on the piano when he was five years old and attended the Royal College of Music in London. He studied bassoon under Kerry Camden and piano under Bernard Roberts and Kendall Taylor.

Not long after graduating, he landed one of his first studio gigs, as part of the makeshift band Magnet, who were assembled to record the soundtrack of The Wicker Man.

In 1985, he appeared with the Albion Ensemble on their album, Mozart: Serenade in C minor, K. 388/384a; Serenade in E flat, K. 375.

His other recording credits include: the chorale preludes from Komm, Gott, Schopfer, heiliger Geist, BWV 631 and Schmucke dich, o liebe Selle, BWV 654 and “Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552” (“St. Anne”) by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Concerto after Monn’s Concerto in D major for Harpsichord”, “Concerto, Op. 42”, “4 Lieder, Op. 22”, “Die Gluckliche Hand, Op. 18”, “Kammersymphonie No. 2, Op. 38” and “Variations, Op. 31” by Arnold Schoenberg, Lawrence of Arabia, and Les Miserables – The Complete Symphonic Recording.

He joined the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in 1987.

On 22^nd March 1999, he donned biker gear to appear with fellow Philharmonia bassoonists to perform Michael Daugherty’s “Hell’s Angels”. The evening also included Daugherty’s “Dead Elvis”, as well as more conventional fare such as “The Fair Melusine” overture of Felix Mendelssohn, “Violin Concerto No. 5” (“Turkish”) by Mozart, and “Symphony No. 4” by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The Philharmonia appeared at Royal Festival Hall on 23^rd April 2005 in a program that comprised the “Prelude und Liebestod” from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 by Richard Strauss, and “Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73” by Ludwig van Beethoven, with Emanuel Ax at the keys.

In October 2005, Michael and his Philharmonia contemporaries, horn player Laurence Davies, percussionist Peter Fry, oboist David Theodore and clarinetist Mark van de Wiel, delivered the world premiere of Anthony Bailey’s “Reflections”.

Tugan Sokhiev conducted the Philharmonia on 15^th April 2010 at Southbank Centre in London in a concert that opened with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36” and was followed by Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Piano Concerto No. 2 in F, Op. 102” with soloist Yevgeny Sudbin, and Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

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