Member of:
Naftule's Dream
Shirim Klezmer Orchestra
the Socially Awkward Composers
Happy Boz'LL*
Fine Foreign Film*
Cultural Constructions*
The Full Bio:
Michael McLaughlin, born in the greater Chicago area and currently residing in Boston, straddles the worlds of performance, composition and music education. He is the pianist/accordionist and composer/arranger for the Klezmer band Shirim and "radical new Jewish music" group Naftule’s Dream. With these bands, McLaughlin has performed on many stages in the US and Europe from the Berlin and New York/Texaco Jazz Festivals to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops. Their music is found on Tzadik, Innova, Knitting Factory Records, Rykco Disc, Newport Classics and Ellipsis. They have currently released a CD on Tzadik in collaboration with children’s author Maurice Sendak entitled Pincus and the Pig, a Klezmer version of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.McLaughlin has worked on two public radio specials produced at WGBH for PRI with Ellen Kushner host of Sound and Spirit; the first, The Golden Dreydle: A Klezmer Nutcracker as a member of Shirim, the second, Esther: The Feast of Masks, as music director arranger, composer and multi-instrumentalist.His most recent projects include Happy Boz’LL a small quintet playing music of Eastern Europe and Roma with vocalist/recorder player Anja Kollmuss, and mandolinist Geoff Brown; Fine Foreign Film, a quintet that plays European film music, with Rick Stone on reeds, Andy Blickenderfer on bass and a number of strings, Andrew Stern on guitar and strings, and Eric Rosenthal on percussion. Michael recently recorded with Michael Winograd’s Infection, an avant-garde circus band with such luminaries as percussionist Kenny Wollesen, trumpeter Frank London; saxophonist Jessica Lurie and of course the young lion of klezmer clarinet, Michael Winograd. Not to mention the number of other amazing and equally talented musicians who make up the band.McLaughlin’s compositional/performance output spans many genres. Jazz, popular, various styles of world folk music and modern concert music all inform his music, including the use of improvisation and aleatoric processes. He has won two awards from the American Composers Forum Boston, as well as an award from the St. Botolph Club and received a 2001 Mass Cultural Council Fellowship Award in Composition. His orchestra work Murder, a “fun and entertaining tribute to film noir composers†(Richard Dyer, the Boston Globe 1/24/05) was recently premiered by The Boston Modern Orchestra Project. His works have also been performed by Trio Capriccio, The Chameleon Arts Ensemble, The Niagara Symphony, The Newton Symphony and the Huntington Brass Quintet.McLaughlin’s stage credits include productions with Pilgrim Theater as musician, actor and sound designer, including N, as in Bonaparte (05), Faust (03), The House Not Touched by Death (00-02) and Letters From Sarajevo, (95-97). From ’92-97, he was a co-founder of the international performance art group Terra Nova, acting as music-director, composer, actor, and even visual artist.In the 90’s McLaughlin explored a diverse realm of world music, as a member of the group Panorama led by Trinidadian steel drum player Mackie Burnette, and as the musical director for the 1994 Boston Music Award winning group Ibrahima’s World Beat, led by Senegalese drummer Ibrahima Camara. He has had the good fortune to play with the world renown, pioneers of Ska, the Skatalites. These culturally rich experiences has led him to his current position as co-director of the music series “Cultural Constructions,†a semi-annual event since 2003, that brings together culturally diverse musicians and their audiences for a period of musical exchange and concert making.McLaughlin is currently on track for a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition at New England Conservatory where he studies with Lee Hyla. He received a Masters Degree in Composition at Tufts University in 1999 where he was a student of John McDonald. His Bachelor of Music is from Berklee College of Music. He currently teaches a Klezmer performance class at Tufts University and lectures at Bristol Community College.
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