I have been teaching cello lessons, both privately and in schools, since 2003. I have taught students of all levels, ages 4-80. I have an education from various aspects of music, with a BA in musicology from Yale, a MM in cello performance from the Mannes College of Music, and cello performance studies at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. I maintain an active performing schedule in the New York area, where I play with a trio, a string quartet, and various other ensembles. I have been on the teaching faculties of the Mannes College of Music, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, Creative Music and Art (Monroe, CT), and the Amadeus Conservatory of Music (Chappaqua).  

Worked at the Musika office since 2007. 

Mike started playing and became obsessed with the cello at age 16. He would fuse this new-found obsession with the passion he had developed years earlier for heavy metal music. This has defined the unorthodox style he's developed. His music fuses his classical training with his love of heavy metal, fantasy, film & folk music. Building layers of cello on top of each other, he creates a world simultaneously dark, beautiful, wonderful, fantastic & breathtaking.

Bach was a household icon for my family during my childhood. Every March we hosted Bach Birthday Parties and I was raised with a love of music.  Although I’d studied piano since age five, at times without much enthusiasm, everything changed when I reached age eleven and “met” my first cello. From the start, I knew I’d found my “medium” in life.  The cello was for me! Throughout middle and high school, I played a great deal of chamber music and participated in school and borough-wide orchestras. At Bennington College I majored in music and joined the Vermont State Symphony!  I was playing cello every chance I could. Following my college graduation, I spent the year in Paris, studying cello and composition. Upon my return to NYC I launched my own self-styled performing and teaching career.  I earned my Master of Arts Degree in Cello Performance at Brooklyn College. All the while, I was performing in various groups such as a 5 woman chamber ensemble called Mother Chord, and, as mentioned above, with the mandolin-English Concertina-cello trio called Calle Strada Strasse and with the musician that took me furthest around the world-Suni Paz, an Argentine singer/songwriter with whom I played from 1976 to 1997, touring Germany, Mexico, and throughout the U.S.  What a gratifying experience that has been!  Despite Suni’s move to California, we still perform together every year.

Teach beginner, intermediate, and early advanced strings, piano, and voice. Repertoire includes: Violin: Mendelssohn Concerto Em, Vitali Chaccone ed. Auer, JS Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Beethoven Romances/ Sonatas, Mozart Violin Concerto 5, Rode Caprices, Kreutzer,  etc., orchestral and chamber etc. Historical Violin and strings style and technique Viola: JS Bach Suites for Cello arr. Viola, Bach sonatas and partitas, GP Telemann Viola Concerto, Hoffmeister Viola Concerto, JC Bach Cello Concerto transcribed viola, Schubert Death and the Maiden quartet, beethoven quartets Cello: JS Bach Cello Suites, Chamber music and Orchestral music, E. Grieg Holberg Suite Piano: JS Bach inventions and well tempered clavier, S. Joplin, Chopin Military Polonaise, Beethoven sonata no. 15, Brahms Intermezzo, Ravel Infante Voice: 24 Italian Songs and Arias, Vaccai, Marchesi, Joseph 1 Alme Ingrate, Mozart Arias, Handel Arias, Catches and Glees S and A, various 18th century arias.