"What I love about Michael's compositions is the way he works with variations on a theme. Themes punctuated by so many individual motifs, then revisited as an oblique variation, as if the living theme is undergoing a rapid metamorphosis. Michael cites surrealism as an influence on his work, and it can sound as if the music is playing tricks on you, as if a pattern of notes could change color before your eyes." -Jeff Gregerson, Pink Noise Podcast
Michael R. Oldham (b. 1989 Braidwood, IL) is a composer and pianist who weaves artwork, story, and imagination into his work. Whether experimenting with looping videos on Instagram as the "parts" of a piece that anyone can play (Music In Segments - 2018), utilizing repeating gif images of old silent films as inspiration for a twelve-movement work (Music In Gifs - 2019), or translating great works of art into music (Suggestion Box: Art - 2020, The Egon Schiele Pieces - upcoming), Michael's thirst for unusual storytelling through music is never quenched.
In life, people get letters of recommendation for new jobs, proposals, grants, and more. How come there isn't a tradition of obtaining one of these letters when someone is in pursuit of a romantic partner? Michael's newest work, Letters of Recommendation for New Romance, muses on exactly that concept. It is also the first single from his forthcoming album, A Closer Look Reveals, due out in 2021.
A project birthed from the 2020 quarantine, Suggestion Box: Art, is out on BandCamp. This EP came about with a call for submissions from Michael's followers on Instagram and Twitter. He asked for works of art that inspire them and then created a 6-movement work based on those suggestions (completed May through July of 2020).
Continuing this trend, his work as composer-as-storyteller is ever-present in the albums, EPs, and singles he has self-released. Recent albums include Three Vignettes (2017), which is a work with short stories for violin and piano, The Los Angeles Miseries (2016), which is a set of pieces for solo piano on perspectives attained while driving across America from Chicago to Los Angeles, Grand Delusions on a Small Scale (2015), which features early solo piano works, as well as Fantasies for Piano (2014), which is a six-movement dissection of some of his favorite songs by artists including Fiona Apple, Dirty Projectors, My Brightest Diamond, Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, and Sufjan Stevens.
Michael's first full-length album, In Select Theaters, is out now on BandCamp and all streaming platforms. The album is inspired by old film and storytelling and features visual pieces like Music In Gifs, Alternate Music for 'How to Steal A Million,' A Muse on Old Hollywood, and the Edward Hopper inspired In Select Theaters. Also check out his ethereal piano and electronics piece Sentiments Unannounced but in Tired Eyes (Version 2018).
NPR Music mentioned his solo piano piece, Phantasmagorical Religious Exercises on their Tumblr once.
Michael has received the Georges Delerue Memorial Scholarship award in film scoring, and has participated in an internship with Paramount Pictures. His music has garnered awards from Berklee's Contemporary Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition, the Music Institute of Chicago's Generation Next Young Composer's Competition, the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, as well as premieres at the New England Conservatory, the Kennedy Center, Chicago's WFMT radio, and the Green Lake Music Festival in Green Lake, Wisconsin.
Michael earned his Bachelor's degree in Film Scoring and Composition from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied briefly at Philippos Nakas Conservatory in Athens, Greece. He also keeps quite busy as a rehearsal and performance pianist in and around Chicago, including work with Chicago Fringe Opera and Chicago's illustrious improv institution, Second City.
In life, people get letters of recommendation for new jobs, proposals, grants, and more. How come there isn't a tradition of obtaining one of these letters when someone is in pursuit of a romantic partner? Michael's newest work, Letters of Recommendation for New Romance, muses on exactly that concept. It is also the first single from his forthcoming album, A Closer Look Reveals, due out in 2021.
A project birthed from the 2020 quarantine, Suggestion Box: Art, is out on BandCamp. This EP came about with a call for submissions from Michael's followers on Instagram and Twitter. He asked for works of art that inspire them and then created a 6-movement work based on those suggestions (completed May through July of 2020).
Continuing this trend, his work as composer-as-storyteller is ever-present in the albums, EPs, and singles he has self-released. Recent albums include Three Vignettes (2017), which is a work with short stories for violin and piano, The Los Angeles Miseries (2016), which is a set of pieces for solo piano on perspectives attained while driving across America from Chicago to Los Angeles, Grand Delusions on a Small Scale (2015), which features early solo piano works, as well as Fantasies for Piano (2014), which is a six-movement dissection of some of his favorite songs by artists including Fiona Apple, Dirty Projectors, My Brightest Diamond, Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, and Sufjan Stevens.
Michael's first full-length album, In Select Theaters, is out now on BandCamp and all streaming platforms. The album is inspired by old film and storytelling and features visual pieces like Music In Gifs, Alternate Music for 'How to Steal A Million,' A Muse on Old Hollywood, and the Edward Hopper inspired In Select Theaters. Also check out his ethereal piano and electronics piece Sentiments Unannounced but in Tired Eyes (Version 2018).
NPR Music mentioned his solo piano piece, Phantasmagorical Religious Exercises on their Tumblr once.
Michael has received the Georges Delerue Memorial Scholarship award in film scoring, and has participated in an internship with Paramount Pictures. His music has garnered awards from Berklee's Contemporary Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition, the Music Institute of Chicago's Generation Next Young Composer's Competition, the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, as well as premieres at the New England Conservatory, the Kennedy Center, Chicago's WFMT radio, and the Green Lake Music Festival in Green Lake, Wisconsin.
Michael earned his Bachelor's degree in Film Scoring and Composition from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied briefly at Philippos Nakas Conservatory in Athens, Greece. He also keeps quite busy as a rehearsal and performance pianist in and around Chicago, including work with Chicago Fringe Opera and Chicago's illustrious improv institution, Second City.
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Photos by Sarah Elizabeth Larson
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Selected Credits.
- Sounds of Pride - featured performer and composer with Chicago Fringe Opera
- New Music Chicago Presents - Grand Delusions on a Small Scale with Michael R. Oldham [Chicago Cultural Center\
- Performance with the Paper Machete - [Green Mill Lounge, Chicago\
- Art Institute of Chicago Block Party 2019 - Art as Music
- New Amsterdam Composers Lab Fellow
- Merriam, A Matzah Ballin' Good Time - improv sketch show, Music Director/Pianist [Sketch Fest + Second City, Chicago\
- Shalom! - improv sketch show, Music Director/Pianist [Second City, Chicago\
- Acquaintances - improv sketch show, Music Director/Pianist [Second City, Chicago\
- Le Voyage Dans La Lune - new score for the classic silent film by Georges Méliès, commissioned and premiered live-to-picture by the Monarch Wind Quintet of Lewis University [Romeoville, IL\
- Vienna Symphonic Library's International Film Scoring Competition - Top 10 Finalist
- Oticons Faculty International Film Music Competition - Top 30 Finalist
- Battleship Potemkin - additional music, orchestration, score prep. for Berklee's Silent Film Orchestra + composer Sheldon Mirowitz [Kennedy Center, Washington D.C. & Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, MA\
- Paramount Pictures Internship - cataloguing + animated short film score [Boston, MA\
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Photos by Nick Stetina