An opera composer/librettist, conductor, songwriter, Michael Ching is the composer/librettist of the opera SPEED DATING TONIGHT! With nearly seventy productions since its 2013 premiere at the Janiec Opera of the Brevard Music Center, SPEED DATING TONIGHT! is one of the most popular operas of the 21st century. In 2018-2019, two new one act operas will have their premieres, THRIVERS, at Palm Springs Opera Guild, and EIGHT WOODS AND A VAN, at the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre. Additional shorter operas this year include BIRTHDAY CLOWN at the Savannah Voice Festival and COMPLETING THE PICTURE for Utah Opera’s commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad.  Michael’s most recent works are two new operas for the Savannah Voice Festival, ALICE RYLEY (2015)  and ANNA HUNTER (2017). Other works include works include SLAYING THE DRAGON and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM,  opera a cappella, recorded on Albany Records. Michael’s other well known opera is BUOSO’S GHOST.  BUOSO is a comic sequel to GIANNI SCHICCHI.

Michael is Music Director of Amarillo Opera, Composer-in-Residence at Savannah Voice Festival, and Opera consultant at EC Schirmer. He is the former Artistic Director of Opera Memphis. In 2019, Michael was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Opera Association. Michael studied composition with Robert Ward at Duke University and Carlisle Floyd at the Houston Opera Studio. 

With a lifelong devotion to the craft of operatic composition learned through the success and failure of over a dozen operas, through composition study, and through years of conducting the standard operatic repertoire; and with a strong interest in folk and country music, Michael is a somewhat of an outlier in the world of new music. 

Finally, here’s an example of Michael’s singer/songwriter work 

Michael is an annual contributor to New Music USA and thinks you should be too.