MICHAEL ROTH is a composer, musician, sound designer, conductor, music director, arranger, orchestrator, and pianist who has created a body of work encompassing film music, chamber music, new and experimental opera and music/theatre, collaborations with Randy Newman, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Al Pacino, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Peter Sellars, and many others, work for PBS and Disney, dance scores, and especially music and sound for theatre, having worked on over 250 productions at major theatres throughout North America, including Broadway, off-Broadway, as a resident artist at both South Coast Repertory (57 productions) and La Jolla Playhouse (35 productions) in California, and the Stratford Festival in Canada.
He is currently collaborating with Al Pacino for the second time, composing and performing live the music and sound for an ongoing Shakespeare project based on RICHARD III.
Other recent projects:
with Tom Hanks as Falstaff, the recent HENRY IV in Los Angeles directed by Dan Sullivan;
THE TEMPEST with Christopher Plummer, onstage and filmed, and Mr. Plummer's solo show A WORD OR TWO;
the PBS documentary JEWS & BASEBALL, narrated by Dustin Hoffman;
IMAGINATION DEAD IMAGINE, his chamber music-theatre treatment of the Samuel Beckett text, for string quartet, recorded voices, and laptop, recently premiered in LA, San Diego and Prague;
two American premieres with Tom Stoppard;
collaborating with Stacy Keach on PAMPLONA, his solo show as Hemingway;
THE LAST WORDS OF UNCLE DIRT, a new collaboration with Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, premiered at Playwrights Horizons in New York in July, 2022;
and three piano sonatas FATS NOVEMBER, TUESDAY FOR TOY PIANO and SHEETCAKE.
Michael received a Santa Monica Arts Commission Grant for his most recent major work, his acclaimed THE WEB OPERA, a groundbreaking new filmed opera premiering exclusively online at thewebopera.com, an official selection at 35 Film Festivals, and a finalist for the DIGITAL EXCELLENCE IN OPERA AWARD from OPERA AMERICA.
Michael's many collaborations with Randy Newman as music director, orchestrator, arranger, and pianist, include musical direction for THE PRINCESS & THE FROG (Disney Animated Features), orchestrations for FAUST - recently revised for a concert presentation in New York and an upcoming performance in LA in 2024 - and editing five definitive anthologies for Alfred Music Publishing.
Michael has also collaborated with, among many others, Anne Bogart, Brian Dennehy, Des McAnuff, Richard Montoya & Culture Clash, Carey Perloff, Bill Pullman, Peter Sellars, Daniel Sullivan, Thomas Kail, Mac Wellman, MacArthur Fellows Sarah Ruhl and Samuel Hunter, and as a pianist has accompanied singers from Alice Ripley to Madonna, Michael McKean, Marni Nixon, and Alicia Keyes. His music is also featured in Wearable Tech Insider.
His upcoming new opera, THE GOLEM OF LA JOLLA, written with Allan Havis, a work-in-progress, had a Los Angeles workshop presentation in December, 2022.
Michael has taught sound design at the University of California, San Diego, is a founding board member and west coast rep of the THEATRICAL SOUND DESIGNERS & COMPOSERS ASSOCIATION and a spokesperson for FINALE notation. He has composed for the UN, was a fellow at the 2011 Sundance Composers Lab and 2013 Baku Forum, and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan where he studied with William Bolcom. His work, including his chamber opera THEIR THOUGHT & BACK AGAIN, is available via iTunes and CDBaby.