About Me
Mike Khoury was born in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1969. As the son of visual artist Sari Khoury, he was exposed to various forms of visual arts, and creative musical forms. Growing up in a university town also availed Mike to various forms of art and music. Mike is Palestinian.Mike began studying violin at the age of 10 and eventually came under the guidance of Juliard graduate Nancy Smith.Ê Abandoning the violin for electric bass, Mike played in various rock combos and eventually settled with The Urban Farmers.The Urban Farmers are a trio which combine ethnic music with elements of jazz and psychedelic rock. Consisting of Patrick Boyer on guitar, Jason Lewis on persussion and Mike on bass, they have enjoyed some sucess with the release of one CD, and various cuts on many compilations.Mike went on to explore the possibilities of free and improvised music and resumed his studies of the violin. He furthered his involvement in the creative improvised realm with Jason Shearer (winds) and Ben Hall (percussion). Mike also played with Siege Machine, a larger ensemble including Ben Hall, John Olson, Jason Shearer, Mark Sawaski and Joel Peterson. Siege Machine balanced graphical score compositions with improvisation. The development of the improvisational duet has also consumed much of Khoury's time and is a preferred format. Often times, Khoury joins Ben Hall, Hans Buetow, Piotr Michalowski or Jason Shearer in duo performances. He has been playing with reedmen Piotr Michalowski and Len Bukowski in a trio setting, both live and in the studio.Mike studies violin at the Art Center Music School with composer/violinist David Litven. Mike continues to work on compositions and improvisations as well as operate Entropy Stereo Recordings, a free improvisation music label.Mike has had the good fortune to record and/or perform with Rob Cambre, Greg Wildes, Allison Stanley, Mark Southerland and Bill McKemy of Malachy Papers, Arny Young, Eric Roth of Explosion:Cerebral, John Sinclair, Maury Coles, Tim Hundevad, Jason Hammer, Le Quan Ninh, the SILVER measure, Hans Fjellestad, Damon Holzborn, Sam Rabourn, Carl Smith, Blaise Siwula, Jack Wright, Chris Peck, James Ilgenfritz, Mike Hansen, Tomasz Krakowiak, David Prentice, Dennis, Aaron, and Stefan Gonzalez, The Northwoods Improvisers, Faruq Z. Bey, Mike Carey, Len Bukowski, Piotr Michalowski, Luc Houtkamp, John Voigt, John Butcher, Jerome Breyerton, Brian Mackie, Michael Welch, Gunda Gottschalk, Nathan Hubbard, Gino Robair, Fred Bergman, Hans Butow, John Shiruba, Curtis Glatter, Damon Smith, Scott Looney, Marcos Fernandes and Wolfgang Fuchs.
