Bio:

Michael LaCroix's music has received awards in the SOCAN Foundation's Young Composers Competition in Canada (for his piano work, Potens Nuntius), in the Fourth International Prof. Ivan Spassov Composition Competition in Bulgaria (for Twelve Faces of the Emerald), and an SCI/ASCAP Regional Award (for A Presence Close as Breath).  His music has been featured in concerts, festivals, and workshops across North America, South America, and Europe, by such performers as: The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and conductor Cliff Colnot in Chicago and Minnesota; The Orchestre National de Lorraine and conductor Diego Masson in Metz, France as part of the Acanthes Festival; eighth blackbird in Chicago; Psappha as part of the St. Magnus Festival in Kirkwall, Scotland; mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley; the FLUX Quartet at CAMI Hall in NYC; Masumi Per Rostad and Brandon Vamos of the Pacifica Quartet; Aventa as part of the Ignite! Composers Workshop; pianist Lisa Kaplan at PianoForte Inc. in Chicago; by Detroit Symphony Orchestra pianist, Robert Conway in solo concerts in Detroit and Windsor, Canada, as well as part of a duo with Canadian pianist Catherine Wilson, commissioning a work for performances in Abbotsford, B.C., Toronto, Detroit, and Columbus, OH; the ensemble of the ARCANA Composers’ meeting in Capriolo, Italy; Brazilian concert pianist Paulo Gazzañeo on two separate tours across South America; Third Angle New Music Ensemble in Portland, OR; Ensemble Green in California; by the composer as pianist at La Schola Cantorum in Paris, France, and at the Detroit International Jazz Festival; and others.

In recent years, he has dramatically increased his activities on a number of fronts, including experiments in electronic music, sound installation and video projects, a number of new works for traditional forces, as well as producing his own concerts in international exchanges with up-and-coming and established ensembles. 

During 2009-10, he completed a year-long appointment as an adjunct instructor of aural skills at Wheaton College Conservatory, taught 18th Century Counterpoint in the College at the University of Chicago during winter, and will teach an additional course, Intro to Composition, in Winter 2011.  He has previously taught music theory and keyboard skills at the University of Windsor, Canada. 

Currently, he is in advanced residence as a student in the PhD program in music composition at the University of Chicago, where his principle teachers have included Marta Ptaszynska, Shulamit Ran, Elzbieta Sikora, and electronic and multimedia music with Howard Sandroff and Kotoka Suzuki.  He graduated Cum Laude from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, with a BMus in Jazz Piano, and continued at WSU with graduate work in composition under James Hartway.  He has also had short term studies or participated in master classes with internationally recognized composers Jan Radzynski, Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Nieder, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Alasdair Nicolson, Sally Beamish, Klaus Ib Jørgensen, Michel Gonneville, Michèle Reverdy, Lukas Foss, Noël Lee, Leslie Bassett, James Lentini, Narcis Bonet, and Philip Lasser.

Recent and Upcoming Activities:

a tour of Twelve Faces of the Emerald (read about the first performance of the work in 8bb's blog in the entry Prima Prima's) beginning at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 21, 2008 featuring soprano Jennifer Macfarlane Haworth and members of the Millennium Chamber Players, as well as dates in early August 2008 in Toronto and Montréal including a performance at the Jusq'aux oreilles Festival with baritone Brad Jungwirth as soloist.  (Read the short, but favorable, review from the Montréal Gazette.)

A Presence Close as Breath, which received its première by eighth blackbird on May 23, 2008, was featured during an open reading session at the Aventa Ignite! Composers Workshop in Victoria, BC, Canada, in early September 2008, and by the University of Windsor faculty ensemble at the Windsor Canadian Music Festival at the end of February 2009.

As a participant in the June 2009 St. Magnus Festival in Kirkwall, Scotland, he composed a short work, Ecliptic, which was premiered by members of Psappha, the ensemble in residence. 

During spring 2010, his new work for orchestra, colored by many waves, was read in Minnesota by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra with Cliff Colnot conducting.  And, ...like the strain waked..., a work for viola and cello, was premièred in Chicago by Masumi Per Rostad and Brandon Vamos of the Pacifica Quartet.  He began the piece as a participant in the 2008 Intrasonus Workshop in Mestre-Venice, in consultation with performers Garth Knox and Rohan de Saram, and composers Roberto Rusconi and Adriano Guarnieri.  Support for the completion of this project came from a Summer Stipend from the Chicago Arts Council at the University of Chicago.

A new music / theater piece is in the planning stages, with a première by eighth blackbird set for May 22, 2011, at Ganz Hall in Chicago's Loop.