MICHAEL COONROD has recently retired from the Interlochen Center for the Arts, where he taught at the Arts Academy for 46 years and at the Arts Camp for 20 years. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, part of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, having studied with Konrad Wolff, biographer of Artur Schnabel. He has given lessons and master classes at the Face Art school of music in Shanghai China, the Eastman School of Music, the Chopin Academy in Warsaw Poland, and the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy.

Dr. Coonrod premiered two concertos with orchestra–one by Richard Cioffari (2018), and another for the left hand alone by Kenji Bunch (2019). He has several recordings to his credit–The Life & Music by Albert James Fillmore, 50th Anniversary Favorites, a two-CD set of piano music by Franz Schubert, and most recently a recording of music by J.S. Bach, Brahms and Schumann, with works for the left hand alone.

In 1994, he presented 20 concerts of music by contemporary American composers. The series culminated in Poland, where he performed at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw and at the Conservatory of Music in Poznan. As an orchestral soloist, he has performed Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Concerto No. 14 with the Louisville String Orchestra, and Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 with the Washington-Idaho Symphony. He has also performed for the American Liszt Society, Eastman School of Music, and Peabody Contemporary Music Ensemble. In 2010, Dr. Coonrod appeared at the University of Qingdao, China as solo recitalist and chamber musician, and also as master class teacher. Dr. Coonrod served for eighteen years as resident pianist at Maple Mount Summer Institute for Young Musicians and coached chamber music in New Harmony, Indiana for select camp students. In 1996, he was included by the governor of Kentucky in the order of Kentucky Colonels for his outstanding contribution to education.

As a retirement project, he is creating a diorama of the Missoula valley in Montana where he grew up. He and Jean Coonrod have three children–David, Michelline, Robert, and four grandchildren–Ava, Lander, Michael, and Calvin.