Michael Walsh

Biography

Dr. Michael Walsh is associate professor of clarinet at South Dakota State University where he also teaches music history and directs the “Windy Jacks” Clarinet Ensemble.

A native of New York, Walsh received his bachelor’s degree, with a minor in music business, and master’s degree from the University of Miami, Florida. While at Miami, he performed with the City of Miami Symphony Orchestra for two years which included a performance in Carnegie Hall in June, 2000.

Walsh holds the distinction as being the first student to earn the D.M.A. in clarinet performance and pedagogy from the University of Kansas under Dr. Larry Maxey. At Kansas he was awarded a fellowship in the Hamilton Graduate Assistantship for clarinet and also held assistantships in jazz and musicology. In 2006, he won the Kansas City Philharmonia Concerto Competition, Woodwind Division, which included a performance of Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsody.

As principal clarinet of the American Wind Symphony Orchestra from 2006-2008 he premiered David Morgan’s Reflections and Meditations for clarinet and winds which was released by C.F. Peters Corporation in January 2008. A strong advocate of new music, he has performed as soloist and as a member of the Miami Clarinet Quartet for the Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, Festival Miami Concert Series and the International Clarinet Association’s annual Clarinetfest. The quartet has premiered and commissioned ten works for the ensemble that include unique quartet instrumentation of two soprano and two bass clarinets.

His professional involvement has included performing at the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors (NACWPI) national conferences. He was elected President of NACWPI in 2014 and has had the pleasure of directing three national conferences. He performs as substitute for the South Dakota Symphony and Dakota Wind Quintet in Sioux Falls, SD. His major teachers include Kalmen Opperman, Dennis Smylie, Lawrence Sobol, Mark Nuccio, Larry Maxey and Margaret Donaghue-Flavin.

Walsh has performed in many music festivals, including the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Opera Theater of Lucca, Italy, The Clarinet Summit, Domaine Forget in Quebec, Canada and Tanglewood Institute.

Walsh has given master classes and recitals in various high schools and universities including the University of Miami, University of Memphis, Southeast Missouri State University, North Dakota State University and The Juilliard School. He has been published in music journals for both collegiate and national levels.

Prior to his appointment at SDSU, he taught at the University of Tennessee at Martin, and has also worked as musicologist assistant for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).