About
Michael Fili is an award winning American composer based in Washington, DC. Drawing from his years of experience as a professional choral musician, Michael’s work focuses on music for the voice. His choral music has been commissioned and performed throughout the United States and Europe and has been recognized by organizations including Chanticleer, Chorosynthesis, the International Federation for Choral Music, and Westminster Choir College. In 2024 Michael was named Composer in Residence at St Paul’s, K Street in Washington, DC, recognized as one of the United States’ leading Episcopal Church music programs.
An active professional chorister, Michael has performed with many of the world’s prominent ensembles, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin State Opera Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philadelphia Orchestra, Phillip Glass Ensemble, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony under conductors including Teddy Abrams, John Adams, Marin Alsop, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Andrew Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, Kurt Masur, Roger Norrington, Gianandrea Noseda, Jeannette Sorrell, Michael Tilson Thomas, Helmuth Rilling, and Donald Runnicles. Michael’s 2024–2025 season includes performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra, and Washington National Cathedral.
From 2016 through 2023, Michael was co-founder and Artistic Director of StageFree Music, a chamber music collective that supported the work of over three-dozen composers and performers with ties to the DC region. Michael also served as the 2018-2019 Artistic Director of TEMPO, the University of Maryland’s new music ensemble. Under Michael’s direction, the seven-concert season included twelve premieres, performances of work by major living composers, a concert of music by Maryland composers, and a portrait concert premiering two of Michael Post’s visual/aural Color Music Pieces.
Michael teaches at Howard University in Washington, DC, where he is Lecturer of Composition and Music Theory. Michael previously was a member of the music theory faculty at Shenandoah Conservatory and occasionally teaches upper-level music theory courses as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland and the Catholic University of America. Michael earned his DMA from the University of Maryland under the supervision of Mark Wilson. He earned his MM from Carnegie Mellon University studying composition with Leonardo Balada and conducting with Robert Page, and his BM is from Westminster Choir College, where his teachers included Joel Phillips, Christian Carey, Stefan Young, Sun Min Lee, James Jordan, and Joe Miller.
Contact
Inquiries about commissioning, lessons, purchasing or renting scores/parts, and general questions are welcome.