Michael Betz is a composer, producer, pianist, percussionist, and bass vocalist from Mason City, IA who is based in the Twin Cities, MN.
Betz is a recipient of the American Composer Forum’s Jerome Fund for New Music grant, for which he composed his Fantasy for Marimba and Electronics (2025). He is a four-time Finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and was awarded Honorable Mention in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. His music has been performed at the Schubert Club Courtroom Concerts, Source Song Festival, Trinity Laban Lunchtime Concerts, and European American Musical Alliance Summer Institute.
Media credits include the theme song to YouTuber Chadtronic’s Cursed Commercials, the soundtrack to Kyanite Games’ Gladiators of Morrow, and sonic contributions to apps by developer Nathan Tornquist.
As a keyboardist, he performs in a variety of musical contexts as a collaborative pianist, jazz pianist, and sideman, recently appearing with George Faber and Fringe Pipes. He has performed as a solo improvisational synthesizer player at Drone Not Drones, the Tourniquet Noise Series, and Khyber Pass Music Thursdays. Betz served as principal percussionist in the St. Olaf Band and Orchestra and occasionally performs with local ensembles, including the Bloomington, Rochester, and Wayzata Symphony Orchestras. As a bass vocalist, he is a section leader with Magnum Chorum and has also sung with MPLS (imPulse), Aliro Voices, and PopUp Choir.
Betz holds a B.M. in Theory and Composition from St. Olaf College, where he studied with Timothy Mahr and Justin Merritt. Betz is a member of ASCAP and the American Composers Forum.