Michael Schutz is Professor of Music Cognition/Percussion at McMaster University in Canada. Designated University Scholar in recognition of his work bridging music performance and music research, he conducts the Percussion Ensemble, directs the MAPLE Lab and teaches courses on music perception and cognition. Prior to McMaster, Michael spent five years as Director of Percussion Studies at Longwood University, taught percussion at Virginia Commonwealth University, and performed frequently with the Roanoke Symphony, Opera on the James, Oratorio Society of Virginia, and the Lynchburg Symphony. Active in the promotion of new music, Michael premiered internationally renowned composer Judith Shatin’s trio Time To Burn, and subsequently recorded this piece on a release from Innova Recordings. Invited solo performances include guest appearances with the University of California, University of Virginia Percussion Ensemble, Ontario and Virginia/DC “Day of Percussion,” Project:Percussion Festival, and the Alvin Lucier Festival. Since 2013 he has served on the percussion faculty of the Penn State Honors Music Institute. He earned a MM in Percussion from Northwestern University where he studied with Michael Burritt, and a BMA in from Penn State University where he studied with Dan Armstrong and Gifford Howarth.
Devoted to building bridges between music performance and music research, he now directs an interdisciplinary team of graduate and undergraduate students exploring musics’ psychological basis. His research on percussion is now featured in multiple textbooks on music cognition and cognitive psychology, and is summarized in an invited chapter of Russell Hartenberger’s 2016 Cambridge Companion to Percussion. Michael he received 2014 Petro Canada Young Innovator award in recognition of his work connecting music perception and performance. A popular speaker, Michael regularly lectures at leading universities and has appeared on the CBC’s Quirks and Quarks with Bob McDonald, Ontario Today with Rita Celli, and most recently, On The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. Michael is an artist/clinician for Innovative Percussion and Sabian cymbals, whose products he is proud to endorse.
For additional information on his research and publications here are his Google Scholar and LinkedIn profiles. General information can be found on Wikipedia, and further detail on his current research on the official MAPLE Lab website.