Biography[]
Michael Reed studied at the Royal College of Music where he was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal. He has conducted, orchestrated and arranged credits for over twenty West End shows including Phantom of the Opera, Barnum, On the Twentieth Century, Ziegfeld and Singin' in the Rain. As Musical Supervisor he was responsible for the worldwide productions of many of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Aspects of Love and Whistle Down the Wind. He was Musical Director for the DVDs of Joseph and also Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 50th Birthday Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 2000 he orchestrated and conducted the music for the movie Furia with music written by Brian May. In 2009 Michael was musical director for the film of the Broadway Musical A Tale of Two Cities for the PBS Channel in the United States.
Michael has been a guest conductor with most of the leading orchestras in the UK, in particular the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC Concert orchestras. Also a frequent contributor for BBC Radio 2, Michael conducted many of the BBC Radio 2 complete musical recordings including Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music and Jesus Christ Superstar. In 2008 Michael conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra and students from the BRIT School in a special concert on BBC Radio 2 live from the Mermaid Theatre London.
In 2008 he was Musical Director for Ian Fleming’s Centenary Celebration Gala at the London Palladium.
Michael has worked extensively in television including arranging and conducting five Royal Variety Shows, the Eurovision Song Contest, three Royal Galas for the Prince's Trust and the Laureus World Sports Awards from Monte Carlo. For the Millennium, as part of BBC’s live coverage from Greenwich, Michael conducted the London Symphony Orchestra along with Simply Red, The Eurythmics and Lesley Garrett. He was the original conductor for Raymond Gubbay’s ‘Classical Spectacular’ concerts and was a founder conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra.
Michael has recorded numerous cast albums including Noel Coward’s Bitter Sweet, Ziegfeld and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the conductor and arranger for ‘Michael Crawford performs Andrew Lloyd Webbers and Sarah Brightman's Surrender album. He also conducted Jose Carreras' Passion album and the very successful single Time to Say Goodbye featuring Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli.
Michael has worked extensively in the USA as musical supervisor of Aspects of Love, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Whistle Down the Wind and The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber which toured all over the States and performed at Radio City with Michael Crawford.
In 1999, Michael won the Best Composer of the Year and the Warner Chappell prizes at the Vivian Ellis Awards for his musical, Les Enfants du Paradis, written with Angela Richards. With book writer and lyricist, Warner Brown, Michael and Jim Steinman have written Garbo, which was premiered in 2003 in Stockholm.
He has written a musical oratorio with Fay Weldon called War in Heaven which was commissioned by the Greek Government for the Athens festival in 2006.
He has enjoyed a long association with the King’s Head Theatre in Islington which still continues to this day. He orchestrated and arranged Mr Cinders, Wonderful Town, One Touch of Venus and his own show Six for Gold written with Warner Brown.
Michael has been composer for four Holiday on Ice productions which were directed by Anthony van Laast and choreographed by Robin Cousins. In 2007 he composed, orchestrated and conducted the score for The Beauty of Magic starring Hans Klok which opened in Las Vegas and was directed by Anthony van Laast.
In Vienna Michael was the Musical arranger/supervisor for Dance of the Vampires, directed by Roman Polanski, which opened in 1997 and is currently running in Berlin where it has just celebrated its 15th year of continuous performances. It has also played or is playing in Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Warsaw, Helsinki and New York! Tanz der Vampire opened at the Mogador Theatre in Paris in October 2014.
In Germany, Michael was Musical Supervisor and Orchestrator for Die Drei Muksetier; and Ich war noch niemals in New York which is currently playing in Berlin.
In 2010 Michael started his association with Thunerseespiele and was Musical Supervisor and Arranger for Dallebach Kari and in 2011 Gothelf. In 2013 he composed with Moritz Schneider the score for Der Besuch der alten Dame, which he also arranged and orchestrated which opened in February 2014 at the Ronacher Theatre in Vienna and played in Tokyo in 2015.
Also in 2013 Michael orchestrated and arranged Moses written by Michael Kunze and Dieter Falk which opened in St.Gallen, Switzerland. He will return to St Gallen in 2017 when they will perform Tanz der Vampire.
Michael was arranger and musical supervisor for Stage Entertainment’s Moeder, Ik Wil Bij de Revue which opened in Autumn 2014 in Utrecht.
In June Michael wrote with John Theakston a rock oratorio called Rock in a Hard Place based on the life of St Paul. It had its premiere at St Paul’s Church, Grove Park , Chiswick and will be repeated this year.
Michael is currently orchestrating Der Medicus, written by Dennis Martin, which opens at the Schlossthater in Fulda in June 2016.
Michael is musical supervisor and arranger for Bat out of Hell written by Jim Steinman which he recently work-shopped in New York and is scheduled to open at the end of the year.
He is about to start work on I am an Austrian with music and lyrics by Reinhard Fendrich which will open in Vienna in 2017.
Michael has just completed conducting Sunset Boulevard at the ENO with Glenn Close.
Work with Jim Steinman[]
- Whistle Down the Wind (musical)
- Tanz der Vampire
- Bat Out of Hell (musical)