Michael Braz (b. 1949)

Dr. Michael Braz received his B.M. and M.M. degrees from the University of Miami, later completing a Ph.D. as a University Fellow at Florida State University. A keyboard soloist in England's Haslemere Festival of Early Music, he has also collaborated with numerous orchestras, music festivals, and ensembles ranging from chamber music to jazz and rock. As a composer, Braz has created orchestra/choral commissions for professional, collegiate, and school/ community ensembles across the country and received an American Composers Forum/Rockefeller Brother Fund “Faith Partners” grant. Additionally, Braz has written two operas, Memoirs from the Holocaust and A Scholar Under Siege.

In his many years as a music educator, he has served as Associate Director of the Miami Choral Society, Conductor/Musical Director of the Boy Singers of Maine, and Founder/Director of Tallahassee's Capital Children's Chorus and the Statesboro (GA) Youth Chorale. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Music at Georgia Southern University, where he has taught theory/composition and education, as well as classes on such subjects as Finale music software and Wagner's Ring Cycle. He is in demand as a pianist, clinician and adjudicator, and—combining a love of teaching and travel—has taught in England, Nepal, and China.