Michael Unger

Canadian-born organist and harpsichordist Michael Unger is Assistant Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. A multiple award-winning performer, he appears as a soloist and chamber musician in North America, Europe, and Japan. He is a First Prize winner of the International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, a First Prize and Audience Prize winner of the National Young Artists’ Competition of the American Guild of Organists (NYACOP), and a Second Prize and Audience Award winner of the International Schnitger Organ Competition on the historic organs of Alkmaar, the Netherlands. Featured solo recitals include performances for the national convention of the American Guild of Organists, Boulder Bach Festival, Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg – Musica Sacra, and numerous international and regional recital series. Recent harpsichord performances include the Skaneateles Chamber Music Festival, appearances with Publick Musick and New York State Baroque, and collaborations as part of conventions for the International Viola Society and International Society of Bassists. He received favorable international reviews for his debut solo recordings under the Naxos and Pro Organo labels: Michael Unger: Organ Recital (recorded in Japan) and Universe of Poetry (recorded in Rochester, NY). His performances have been broadcast on North American and European radio, in addition to syndicated programs Pipedreams and With Heart and Voice.
 
Unger holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under David Higgs and William Porter, and was a recipient of Eastman’s Performer’s Certificate and the Jerald C. Graue Musicology Fellowship. He is a Gold Medal graduate of the University of Western Ontario, and his former teachers include Ethel Briggs, Sandra Mangsen, Joel Speersta, and the late Larry Cortner. He is formerly the Director of Music at Rochester’s Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word and is a published composer of choral music.