BIOGRAPHY :  MICHAEL SCHELLE    


      SCHELLE is pronounced Shelley : as in FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

        


MICHAEL SCHELLE (b. 1950, Philadelphia) : raised in Bergen County, New Jersey, Schelle graduated from Northern Highlands Regional High School where, as Captain of the track team, he held the all-state distance records in javelin, shot put and hammer for three years running. Now 30 years running as Composer in Residence at Butler University's School of Music in Indianapolis, he has been 2X a Pulitzer Prize nominee, recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Composition Prize, a finalist for the International Humour in Poetry Competition (Paris), a published author (film music book) and restaurant critic (Indianapolis).

Schelle's music has been commissioned and/or performed by over 250 orchestras and professional chamber ensembles across the US and abroad including Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Greenwich (CT) Orchestra and Chorus, Honolulu Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Missouri Symphony, District 99 Symphony Orchestra (Chicago), the New York Festival Orchestra, the principal orchestras of Albany (NY), Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Tulsa, North Carolina, Springfield (Mass), New Jersey, New Mexico, Knoxville, Evansville, Fort Smith (AR) and Fort Wayne; the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, New World Chamber Orchestra, Orkestra Projekt, Columbus Pro Musica, XTET (Los Angeles), Voices of Change (Dallas), SONOR (San Diego), ISIS New Music Ensemble (Austin), UQ Urban Quartet: Phoenix, AZ, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Eastman School of Music New Music Group, etc.

Recent critically-acclaimed international performances of his music have included Kammerorchester Basel (Switzerland), the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra (Moscow), the St. Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Philharmonic, Czestochowa Philharmonic (Poland), Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional (Costa Rica), Koenig Ensemble of London, Vale of Glamorgan Music Festival (Cardiff, Wales), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), CoMET (Contemporary Music Ensemble of Tokyo), 2008 Firenza International Music Festival (Italy), Ningbo, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hiroshima, Beijing, Brussels, Berlin, Bombay, Budapest, Bucharest, Vienna, Prague and Amsterdam.

Schelle has received composition grants and awards from many prestigious arts organizations including the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), the Rockefeller Foundation (NYC), American Symphony Orchestra League (NYC), League of American Orchestras "Music Alive" program, Organization of American States (OAS), Welsh Arts Council (Cardiff, Wales UK), International Percussive Arts Society, American Pianists Association, Barlow Endowment for Music Composition (UT), Great Lakes Arts Alliance, New England Foundation for the Arts, Pennsylvania Arts Commission, Indiana Arts Commission, New York State Arts Council, Arts Midwest, Arts Council of Indianapolis, ASCAP and BMI.

Schelle has held numerous extended composition residencies in the USA including the MacDowell Colony (New Hampshire), Spoleto USA Festival (Charleston, SC), Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts (Virginia), ICAM (Institute of Contemporary American Music), the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program and the Finger Lakes Music Festival (upstate NY). He has been the featured Guest Composer for ALL-SCHELLEMUSIK programs (chamber groups, orchestras and symphonic wind ensembles), masterclasses and lectures at many leading institutions including the University of Massachusetts, University of Kansas, University of Oklahoma, Sam Houston State University, Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.), Louisiana State University, Washington State University, The Ohio State University, California Lutheran University, Eastern Michigan University, Syracuse University, University of Notre Dame, Bowling Green State University, University of Wisconsin, University of New Mexico, Carnegie Mellon University, Kent State University, Southern Illinois University, Capital University, Tarleton State University (TX), Old Dominion University, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, USC, UCLA, NYU, various SUNYs

Recent international Guest Composer residencies have included Nagoya Imperial University (Japan 2009), Aichi Prefectural University (Yazako, Nagakute, Japan 2010), The People's Power Grid University School of Music (Beijing, China, 2010) and the National University of San Jose / Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional (Costa Rica).

Schelle holds degrees from Villanova University (theatre), the Hartt School of Music / University of Hartford, Trinity College of Music, London, UK, (diploma) and a Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. His composition teachers have included Aaron Copland, Arnold Franchetti, Eric Stokes and Dominick Argento. Schelle's works are published by Keiser Classical / Hal Leonard (New York / St. Louis), Silman-James Press (Los Angeles, CA), Indiana University Press, European American Music, American Composers Edition (NYC) and commercially recorded by CRS (Philadelphia) and Albany Records (NYC / London).

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                        with my composition teachers:  Aaron Copland and Arnold Franchetti, c. 1979

                                                  Copland's house on the Hudson River  :  Fishkill, NY


                                             

                                         


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    BIO ETC.


  • January 2010 : Schelle was in CHINA with the South Shore Orchestra (Chicago) for eight concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Zhoushan and Ningbo. Sponsored by the Confucious International Center, Schelle's 2002 Piano Concerto, Wright Flight was featured on each concert, Miho Sasaki, piano. The programs also included music by Copland, Paganini, Strauss, and two Chinese composers.



 




  • Schelle was named Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association during the MTNA national conference in Wichita, KS for his large chamber work Musica Magnetizarre  (commissioned by Indiana University)

  • Had a date with CHER : New York City, January 1996

  • 31 December 2001 : The Indianapolis Star selected the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra's performance of Michael Schelle's 3-mvmt violin concerto, Play Us Chastity on Your Violin (featuring Czech superstar violinist Livru Prunaru) as the No. 1 Classical Music Event of 2001 in the City of Indianapolis

  • John Cage started a standing ovation for Schelle's chamber piece, HOWL (1986) after a performance at the University of Kansas in 1988. HOWL was also presented with guest participant Allen Ginsberg in 1995, with the poet performing on his treasured squeeze box (a gift from Bob Dylan) reading a 'new part' specifically written by Schelle for the occasion.

  • As an undergraduate at Villanova University, Michael Schelle studied briefly with iconic San Francisco Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and spent a long night in the Philadelphia city lockup following an underage drinking raid on Kelly's Bar

  • Conductors of Michael Schelle's orchestral music have included: Sir Neville Marriner, Keith Lockhart, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Dennis Russell Davies, Maxiamo Valdes, Michael Gielen, Paul Polivnick, Tsung Yeh, William McGlaughlin, John Nelson, Edvard Tchivzhel, Neal Gittleman, John Jeter and Oleg Kovalenko.

  • In one of the most surreal adventures of his career, Schelle was certain they had called the wrong phone number when Lawrence Central High School (IN) "Spirit of Central" Marching Band called and asked permission to arrange excerpts from his orchestral works, Crash-out, Samurai, The Last Ride and Detour to Nowhere for their eleven-minute 2003 half-time program. Creating an elaborate, sophisticated and complicated show, the 175-member LCHS marching band went on to place very high in regional, state and national competitions (Bands of America), including the coveted  "First Place : "Best Music" in the ISSMA BOA National Invitationals !!

  • Schelle has 3 Maine Coon cats, 3 shelter/rescue cats, two twentysomething kids (in CT and NYC) . . .  and has never written a woodwind quintet



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                                    P H O T O G R A P H S


   Mandatory composer with cat picture       

  


                                Mandatory reflective "deep thoughts" composer picture : Arizona

                            



                                            Mandatory eccentric serious composer picture :  Nagoya, Japan

                                                             


 

                                            Mandatory artsy hipster album cover composer picture :                                                

                                                  


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                   ENJOY NICE LIFE IN INDIANA  . . .


                     Upscale neighborhood in northeast Indianapolis, IN

 


                   One of the many lovely Lake Michigan beaches in northern Indiana