Photo by Guanlu Guan
Michael Betz is a composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Mason City, IA, currently based in the Twin Cities, MN. His compositions are not limited to the concert stage and have appeared in a variety of media, including Android apps by developer Nathan Tornquist and the YouTube series Chadtronic. As a keyboardist, he is comfortable in a variety of musical contexts and maintains an active performance schedule as a jazz pianist, collaborative pianist, and sideman (recently appearing with the Fringe Pipes and George Faber). He also performs as a solo improvisational synthesizer player and has played Twin Cities experimental music series such as Drone Not Drones, the Tourniquet Noise Series, and Khyber Pass Thursdays. Betz served as principal percussionist in the St. Olaf Band and St. Olaf Orchestra and continues to make appearances with local ensembles, including the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra and Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. As a chorister, he is the bass section leader with Magnum Chorum and also regularly sings with MPLS (imPulse), Aliro Voices, and PopUp Choir. He teaches private piano, guitar, and and beginning orchestral string lessons through the Minnetonka Music Academy.
Betz is a recipient of the American Composer Forum’s Jerome Fund for New Music grant. His orchestra work Enclosure was awarded Honorable Mention in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. Four of his works have received finalist designation in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. He has also received recognition in calls for scores from the Solo and Chamber Timpanist’s Initiative and Symphony Number One. He has received commissions from the Source Song Festival, Magnum Chorum, St. Olaf College, and Mason City High School, among others. His music has been performed in Europe and the United States and has been heard locally in many Twin Cities classical music venues such as Westminster Hall, Antonello Hall, Studio Z, the Baroque Room, and the Schubert Club Courtroom Concert Series. Performers of his music include Aliro Voices, RenegadeEnsemble, Neoteric Chamber Winds, pianist Mary Jo Gothmann, baritone Alan Dunbar, flutist Yoshi Weinberg, the Vine Orchestra, the St. Olaf Band and St. Olaf Orchestra, Una Vocis Choral Ensemble, the Mason City High School Symphonic Band and Concert Choir (IA), and chamber ensembles from the University of Iowa and Roseville Area High School (MN).
Betz holds a B.M. in Theory and Composition from St. Olaf College, where he studied with Timothy Mahr and Justin Merritt. He also studied composition with David Conte at the EAMA-Nadia Boulanger Summer Institute. Betz is a member of ASCAP and the American Composers Forum.