A diverse and active solo, chamber and orchestral percussionist, Michael Compitello is currently studying the Ensemble Modern and working with percussionist Rainer Römer in Frankfurt, Germany on a Fulbright Grant from the US State Department.

As a solo percussionist, he has appeared in Yale’s New Music New Haven series and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival New Music Workshop, as has presented recitals in Tucson and Green Valley, Arizona.

A strong advocate of new music, Michael has worked with composers David Lang, John Luther Adams, Marc Applebaum, Martin Bresnick, Joan Panetti, and Kathryn Alexander on premieres and performances of new works. He has appeared with the International Ensemble Modern Academy, the Live Music Project, Rhymes with Opera, No Signal, the Yale Schola Cantorum and the Yale Camerata. He has performed in Frankfurt’s ROT Neue-Musik festival, the Kasseler Musiktages, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention.

This interest in creating and performing contemporary music led him to in 2009 to participate in the Banff Centre’s Roots and Rhizomes summer percussion residency, where he worked with percussionists Steve Schick, Bob Becker and Anders Loguin on performances of new and classic chamber music for percussion. In 2006 and 2008 Michael attended the New Music Workshop of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In 2006 and 2007, Michael was a fellow at the Bang on a Can All-Stars Summer Music Institute.

As an orchestral musician, Michael has performed under conductors Pierre Boulez, Marin Alsop, Reinbert de Leeuw, David Zinman, James Conlon, Brad Lubman and Gustav Meier. He has appeared with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. In the summer of 2009 he toured China and Korea with Bach’s B-Minor Mass and the Yale Schola Cantorum, under the direction of Simon Carrington.

Michael earned a BM in Percussion from the Peabody Conservatory and an MM from the Yale School of music, both as a student of Robert van Sice.