MICHAEL SCHELLE (b. 1950, Philadelphia): raised  in Bergen County, New Jersey, Schelle graduated from Northern Regional High School where, as Captain of the track team, he held the all-state distance records in javelin, shot put and hammer for 3 years running, Now 30 years running as Composer in Residence at Butler University's School of Music, Indianapolis, he has been 2X a Pulitzer Prize nominee, a finalist for the International Humour in Poetry Competition (Paris) and a published restaurant critic.

His music has been performed by over 200 orchestras & professional chamber ensembles across the US and abroad including the Chicago Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Greenwich (CT) Orchestra & Chorus, Honolulu Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, the New York Festival Orchestra, the principal orchestras of Birmingham, Albany (NY), Missouri, Baton Rouge, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Springfield (Mass), Knoxville, Evansville, Dayton & Tulsa; the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, New World Chamber Orchestra, Orkestra Projekt (IN), Columbus Pro Musica (OH);  XTET (Los Angeles), Voices of Change (Dallas), SONOR (San Diego), Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, ISIS Ensemble (Austin), Ronen Chamber Ensemble, the Indiana Opera Theatre, and the Eastman School of Music New Music Group.

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), the Koenig Ensemble of London, the Vale of Glamorgan Music Festival (Cardiff, Wales), the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), CoMET (Contemporary Music Ensemble of Tokyo), 2007 Firenza International Music Festival (Italy) and in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Beijing, Brussels, Berlin, Bombay, Budapest, Bucharest, Vienna, Prague and Amsterdam. 2011 will include international performances of Schelle's orchestral music in Amsterdam, Greece, Italy and Japan.

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

Recent International Featured Guest Composer residencies have included: University of San Jose (Costa Rica), Nagoya Imperial University (Nagoya, JAPAN), Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music (Yazako, Nagakute, JAPAN : 2010), Tokyo College of Music (2010) and The People's Electric Power University of Beijing, China.

Schelle has held numerous extended composition residencies in the USA, including  the MacDowell Colony (New Hampshire), the Spoleto USA Festival (Charleston, SC), the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts (Virginia), ICAM (Institute of Contemporary American Music, CT) and the Finger Lakes Music Festival (upstate NY).  He has been the featured Guest Composer for various ALL-SCHELLE music programs, lectures and masterclasses at many institutions including the University of Massachusetts, the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma, Sam Houston State University (TX), Louisiana State University, The Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.), University of Notre Dame, Washington State University, California Lutheran University, Syracuse University, LeMoyne College (NY), Eastern Michigan University, St. Mary's College (IN), Bowling Green State University, Capital University (OH), Old Dominion University, Kent State University, University of Southern California, UCLA and NYU. 

Since 1997 Schelle has enjoyed his many personal and professional ties to the bizarre world of the Los Angeles film music scene: visiting frequently, working with Hollywood film composers & ghost-writing on many low-budget Hollywood film scores (including  G-Men from Hell and Bikini Prison) and has written/published a 450-page film music book, The Score (Silman-James Press, L.A., 2000).  Schelle is the featured composer in the award-winning / critically-acclaimed 65-minute symphonic documentary, Extreme Orchestra!: Opening Night (2005 - Miasma Film Group, Dallas, TX), which received its premiere public screening at the prestigious Hot Springs Film Festival (AR), and has since been featured at many film fesivals across the country including those in Seattle, Portland (OR), Dallas, San Francisco, and New York City.

Schelle holds degrees from Villanova University (theatre), the Hartt School of Music / University of Hartford, CT, the Trinity College of Music, London, UK, (diploma), and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. His teachers have included Aaron Copland, Arnold Franchetti and Dominick Argento. Schelle's works are published by Lauren Kaiser (MMB) Music, Inc. (St. Louis), Silman-James Press (Los Angeles, CA), Indiana University Press, European American Music, American Composers Edition (NYC) & commercially recorded by CRS (Philadelphia) and Albany Records (NY / London).  He has 5 Maine Coon cats, two adult kids (in CT & NYC), and has never written a string quartet.

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                                                    STYMIE  and  BERKOWITZ

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ETC . . .

From 26 December 2009 thru 7 January 2010, Schelle was on tour in CHINA with the South Shore Orchestra (Chicago) for seven (7) concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, etc. Sponsored by the Confucious Center for International Knowledge, Schelle's 2002 Piano Concerto, Wright Flight, was the featured piece on each concert, Miho Sasaki, piano. The programs will also include music by Copland, Paganini, etc.

Schelle was named Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association during the MTNA national conference (Witchita, KS) for his 3-mvmt chamber work Musica Magnetizarre (orig. commissioned by Indiana University).

On 31 December 2001, The Indianapolis Star newspaper selected the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra's performance of Schelle's violin concerto, Play Us Chastity on Your Violin (featuring Rumanian superstar silver-medal violinist Livru Prunaru) as the No. 1 Classical Music Event of 2001 in the City of Indianapolis.

He has 7X been Composer in Residence with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, NYC (2005 - 2010), 3X with the Fort Smith (AR) Symphony Orchestra (1998, 2004, 2009) and 3X with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. He was Composer in Residence (w/support from a New York State Arts Council grant) for the 2007 Finger Lakes (upstate NY) Summer Chamber Music Festival w/the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra