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Joshua Michal is Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A native of Ohio, he is an active orchestral musician and pedagogue, currently serving as a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra.
Dr. Michal has performed with many of the nation’s leading ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the United States Coast Guard Band, and the Breckenridge Music Festival. He has also toured internationally with Boston Brass. From 2007–2009, he was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and was deeply engaged in music outreach initiatives throughout the city through MusiCorps and the Merit School of Music. In 2020, Dr. Michal released his debut solo album, Ekphrasis, featuring world-premiere works for horn and electronics by Peter Van Zandt Lane, Mark Oliveiro, Salvatore Macchia, and Gordon Green, with additional music by Tyler Ogilvie. He also recorded and released Summer’s Distillation on the Navona label, a collection of new works by Joseph Summer based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare. In 2024, he appeared on Where Songs Go at Night, released on the Neuma Records label, with Bandwidth, a professional wind chamber ensemble of which he is a founding member. His discography further includes recordings on the Resound label with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and on the Analekta label as solo horn with L’Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne for Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. He has also recorded with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Albany Symphony Orchestra. Two additional albums featuring music for solo horn and chamber ensembles are scheduled for release in 2026. As a soloist, Dr. Michal has appeared with numerous ensembles, performing The Glass Bead Game by James Beckel with Valley Winds and the UMass Wind Ensemble, Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11 with the UMass Symphony Orchestra, and Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 417 with both the Pioneer Valley Symphony and The Ohio State University Orchestra. Dr. Michal is an active clinician and presenter, having given recitals and masterclasses at the International Horn Society Conference, International Women's Brass Conference, Association for Imagery and Music Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, International Computer Music Conference, SPLICE Festival, and the Ohio Music Education Association Conference. Additional appearances include the Hartt School of Music, University of Georgia, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, The Ohio State University, Ohio University, Bowling Green State University, Amherst College, and others. From 2017–2021, he served on the faculty of the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp in Interlochen, Michigan and is currently a faculty member of the Greenwood Summer Music Camp in Cummington, MA. Dr. Michal holds degrees from Indiana University (B.M.), Northwestern University (M.M.), and The Ohio State University (D.M.A.), with additional studies at Bowling Green State University and the IES Institute in Vienna, Austria. His principal teachers include Rosemary Williams, Michael Hatfield, Michael Höltzel, Richard Seraphinoff, Jeff Nelsen, Volker Altmann, Gail Williams, Elizabeth Freimuth, and Bruce Henniss. Dr. Michal is a Stephens Horns Artist and performs exclusively on a custom instrument handcrafted by Steve Shires in Vermont. |
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