Michael Coleman

Adjunct Professor, Theory

Michael Coleman teaches theory, instrumentation, counterpoint, and composition at the University of West Florida. He has participated as composer/pianist in numerous new music programs and festivals in the U.S and Russia and has also had works performed in France, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Some of the programs and festivals include the Art Between Centuries Conference (Rostov-on-Don, Russia), Astrakhan's (Russia) Evenings of Chamber Music Festival, Capital Composers Alliance, Charles Ives Center, College Music Society, Delius Association of Florida, First Modern Russian and American Music Festival (Kolomna, Russia), Louisiana Composers Guild, Moscow Autumn, New Music Chicago, Russian Mission International Festival of Arts (Kostroma & Moscow, Russia), Southeastern Composer’s League, and the Uptown/Downtown Series (NYC). Among his awards are First Prize in both the 1991 and 1992 NFMC National Composer's Competitions and First Prize in the 1989 Res Musica Baltimore Competition. Other awards include Certificate of Excellence for Best Short Composition and First & Second Prize in the Keyboard Category of the 2001 Composer's Guild Competition held in Farmington, Utah.

Dr. Coleman has premiered a number of his own piano works along with those by Merab Gagnidze, Jerry Sieg, and Sergei Zhukov. He has also written works for chamber ensembles, voice, & orchestra and as part of the duo Tone Twister, he and tubist Tim Jackson have performed a variety of original and new works for tuba and piano. Coleman received his doctorate from the University of Maryland and holds degrees from the University of New Orleans and the University of South Alabama, studying with Lawrence Moss, Jerry Sieg, and Carl Alette, respectively. His Two Bagatelles were part of a 2007 CD release by pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi through Capstone Records and recent performances of his works include those by the Birmingham Art Music Alliance, Lyceum Series at Pensacola State College, and the Society of Composers, Inc. He was an artist fellowship grant recipient from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 1994 and he received a Meet-the-Composer grant in 1995. Dr. Coleman has served as adjudicator on a number of composition competitions, most recently for the 2009 SCI/ASCAP Region I Composition Competition. His work, 3:48 Eastern, was premiered by cellist Rachel Arnold on August 30, 2009 on a New Music Hartford concert consisting only of premiers of works written between 3:00 & 4:00 p.m. eastern on August 2, 2009. Ms. Arnold later performed the work at the Lily Pad in Cambridge, MA, in February, 2010. His Lenten congregational hymn O Dear Lord! Pity Me! was sung weekly during Lent, 2010 at Zion Lutheran Church in Silverhill, AL which uses a text adapted from Psalm 51 by former Pastor David Johnson. His Gulf Coast Crystals (2010) was premiered by the Gulf Coast Virtuosi (violinist Leonid Yanovskiy & pianist Kadisha Onalbayeva) on July 25, 2010 on the New Sunset Series in Highland Part, IL with three subsequent performances along the gulf coast, including a performance at the University of West Florida. Dr. Coleman also teaches at Pensacola State College and is the organist/music director at Zion Lutheran Church in Silverhill, Alabama.