MICHAEL ROTH, whose work has been called "music one could imagine Charles Ives composing had he lived long enough to encounter rock-and-roll and beat poetry," is a composer, musician, sound designer, music director, orchestrator and pianist who has created a body of work encompassing chamber music, music for film, new and experimental opera and music/theatre, including his acclaimed THE WEB OPERA, dance scores, work for PBS and Disney, and collaborations with, among others, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Tom Stoppard, Al Pacino and many collaborations with composer Randy Newman.

Michael is especially known for his work in theatre, having composed music and sound for over 250 productions at major theatres throughout North America, including Broadway, off-Broadway, as a resident artist at both South Coast Repertory (57 productions) and La Jolla Playhouse (35 productions) and Canada's Stratford Festival.

Recent projects include: with Tom Hanks, HENRY IV in Los Angeles, directed by Daniel Sullivan; with Christopher Plummer, THE TEMPEST, onstage and filmed at Stratford, and Plummer's solo show A WORD OR TWO, seen in Canada and Los Angeles; IMAGINATION DEAD IMAGINE, his chamber music-theatre treatment of Samuel Beckett's text, authorized by Beckett, for string quartet, recorded voices, and laptop, seen in Los Angeles, San Diego and receiving its European premiere at a special Beckett and technology conference in Prague; working with Al Pacino, composing chamber music for an experimental Shakespeare solo project; composing scores for two US premieres with Tom Stoppard; music for a new collaborations with playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig - LAST WORDS OF UNCLE DIRT (an audio play commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, Michael scored and directed the project, featuring guitarist Peter Sprague, Wu Man on pipa, and Dutch actor/singer Kok-Hwa Lie); the PBS documentary JEWS & BASEBALL narrated by Dustin Hoffman; collaborating with Stacy Keach on his solo show as Hemingway; three piano sonatas: SHEETCAKE, FATS NOVEMBER, and TUESDAY FOR TOY PIANO, premiered in LA by Mark Robson as part of Piano Spheres; and his upcoming new opera collaboration with librettist Allan Havis, THE GOLEM OF LA JOLLA, a forward-thinking and controversial look at contemporary anti-Semitism.

Michael received a Santa Monica Arts Commission Grant for THE WEB OPERA, his innovative online film/opera, an official selection at 34 film festivals, praised by Fanfare for it’s “high voltage music ... a beautifully realized, poignantly constructed new opera,” featured at the NEW MUSIC GATHERING-2021, composed to raise awareness of cyber-abuse and work towards suicide prevention. THE WEB OPERA can be seen at https://www.thewebopera.com.

His many collaborations with Randy Newman as music director, orchestrator, arranger, and pianist, include musical direction for THE PRINCESS & THE FROG (Disney Animated Feature), orchestrations for FAUST - recently revised for a concert presentation in New York, upcoming at the Soraya Center in LA - and editing five definitive songbook anthologies for Alfred Music Publishing.

Michael has also collaborated with, among many others, MacArthur Fellows Peter Sellars, Sarah Ruhl and Samuel Hunter in addition to Anne Bogart, Des McAnuff, Richard Montoya & Culture Clash, Carey Perloff, Thomas Kail, and Mac Wellman. As a pianist he has accompanied singers from Alice Ripley to Madonna, Michael McKean, Marni Nixon, and Alicia Keyes. His music is also featured in the Wearable Tech Insider Podcast.

Michael taught sound design at UCSD and is a founding board member of THEATRICAL SOUND DESIGNERS & COMPOSERS ASSOCIATION where he put together the TSDCA Salons throughout the pandemic, aimed towards encouraging young composers and sound artists to keep creating their own projects in difficult times. 

A spokesperson for FINALE notation software, Michael has composed for the UN (against the proliferation of landmines) and attended the 2011 Sundance Composers Lab and the 2013 Baku Forum. He graduated from the University of Michigan where he studied with William Bolcom, and his work, including his acclaimed CD THEIR THOUGHT & BACK AGAIN, is available via iTunes.   

For more information, please see https://rothmusik.wixsite.com/rothmusik