Michael has been involved with opera in New Zealand for over thirty years, starting as Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor for Wellington City Opera in 1991 and retaining those positions when New Zealand Opera was formed in 2000. He has arranged and conducted opera-in-schools programmes, conducted performances for Opera Hawke’s Bay, Whanganui Opera, Day’s Bay Opera, Boutique Opera, and touring productions for New Zealand Opera, creating reduced orchestrations for those productions.
Michael regularly conducts both Wellington City Orchestra and Kapiti Concert Orchestra. In a career that spans over fifty years he has worked with many groups, orchestras, choirs and Maori Kapa Haka, including taking a group from Ngati Kahungunu on an Australian tour with the National Youth Orchestra in 1988.
As a composer and arranger, he has recently edited and published three volumes of pre-1950 New Zealand art songs, a selection of which were presented on a tour to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland by New Zealand Opera.
He has been a tutor at the annual New Zealand Opera School in Whanganui for nearly twenty years and is President of The New Zealand Opera Society.