Michael was born in Petone and studied Music at the Wellington Polytechnic. He made his professional debut as Musical Director in 1983 with Tom Foolery at Circa Theatre. Since then he has been responsible for productions throughout New Zealand including Side by Side by Sondheim, and recently sang and danced in his own show, Dead Tragic.
In 1988 he was Musical Director for oNZtage at Expo 88 in Brisbane. He spent the following year in Sydney where he was Assistant Musical Director for Evita and repetiteur / alternative 1st keyboard in Chess. He returned to New Zealand in 1990 and since then has been Musical Director of national tours of Ken Hill’s original Phantom of the Opera (also in Japan), Blood Brothers (also in Australia), The New Rocky Horror Show, Boogie Nights and Starlight Express plus many shows in Wellington including Downstage’s Sweeney Todd, the Gareth Farr/Paul Jenden musicals Troy and Monarchy and WMT’s productions of Cats, The Sound Of Music, Miss Saigon and The Gleevent.
He has been Assistant Musical Director/Conductor on tours of Cats, The Secret Garden and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (New Zealand and Asia) Mamma Mia (Melbourne )and Fiddler On the Roof. He has composed scores for many productions including Under Milk Wood, The American Pilot, Uncle Vanya, The Great Gatsby and six Roger Hall pantomimes. He wrote music and lyrics for the short film Call Me Al and produced and arranged Sue Dunlop’s album Random Deviations.
Michael lives in Wellington and is married to actor Emma Kinan. They have two children, Barnaby and Claire.