Dr. Michael Kirkendoll

Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano
michael@michaelkirkendoll.com
405-744-8990
SCPA 110

www.michaelkirkendoll.com

Bridging the gaps between old and new, Michael Kirkendoll is a not your everyday pianist. Equally at home in the worlds of Beethoven and Haydn as in those of Frederic Rzewski and John Cage, Michael’s concerts are unique musical experiences leaving audiences eager for the next performance. His performances in the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia have garnered great praise by audiences and critics alike. Michael’s recent appearances as a finalist in the American Pianists Association Classical Fellowship Awards were lauded as “inspired” showcasing “extraordinary” technical gifts and “superior intelligence.” His performance of John Corigliano’s Piano Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra “dazzled from the moment he sat down at the keyboard” and his collaboration with the Parker String Quartet in the Shostakovich Piano Quintet “had you hanging on every phrase.”

Earning performance degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (MM) and the University of Kansas (BM, DMA), Michael’s training has led to enthusiastically received performances around the world. In 1999, Michael toured France’s Loire Valley with programs of Chopin, Beethoven, and Ravel which critics heralded as “astonishing, regal, and eloquent (La République, Orléans). Similar praise came after Michael substituted on 36 hours notice for a performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto in Merkin Hall, New York City.

In recent years, Michael has become a dedicated advocate for the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. His talents for this music extend far beyond the typical pianistic arsenal of octaves and arpeggios. Michael possesses a deep and powerful voice and a lack of inhibition allowing him to perform with great skill some of the 20th-21st centuries most avant-garde works for theatrical pianist, including Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis and Jerome Kitzke’s Sunflower Sutra. Michael’s work with Frederic Rzewski led to the 2007 premiere of the Nanosonatas, Book 1. Since 2006, Michael has premiered over a dozen new works as either a soloist or collaborator. In addition to the music of Rzewski and Kitzke, his programs feature a diverse range of contemporary styles, with music by such composers as David Rakowski, Charles Ives, Bruno Mantovani, Jacob Ter Veldhuis, Olivier Messiaen, and David Lang.

In 2002, Michael and his wife, flutist Mary Kirkendoll, formed DuoSolo: an ensemble devoted to promoting the music of living composers in genre-bending concerts featuring both solo and duo repertoire for flute and piano. In 2006, DuoSolo made their Carnegie Hall debut with a program of music from the last 60 years including the NY premiere of Gabriela Frank’s Sueños de Chambi: Snapshots for an Andean Album. The performers were deemed “powerhouses” by the New York Concert Review, and Michael’s playing was lauded as “thought-provoking” and “without fault.” DuoSolo has since performed around the U.S., Europe and Asia, giving world premieres of music by David Rakowski, Forrest Pierce, and Zechariah Goh. Their 2009-2010 season will feature the premiere of the winning piece of the first DuoSolo Emerging Composer Competition. Michael and Mary recently formed the DuoSolo Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization to support the commissioning, performance, recording, and promotion of contemporary music.

Michael’s programming philosophy is to make the concert experience filled with emotional hills and valleys of laughter, nervousness, and passion, keeping both himself and his audiences connected and involved throughout the program. With a repertoire spanning the centuries, Michael is dedicated to educating and finding new audiences, wherever he goes. Seeking out interesting venues from museums to jazz clubs and lecture halls, he always introduces his music in an informed and personal way, making concerts a shared experience for both performer and listener.

Michael is currently the Visiting Professor of Piano at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK, where he lives with his his wife and two dogs. When not at the piano, you can find him fixing gourmet meals, opening bottles of fine wine, on the golf course, or longing to catch the next wave.