About:

Michael Kropf is a composer whose music engages with evocative places, personalities, and histories. He has collaborated with Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Symphony, the Apple Hill String Quartet, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. His music has been described as "a brilliant, rapid fire stretch of perpetual motion," by the SF Chronicle's Joshua Kosman. Recent projects include Moses in Nederland, a violin concerto for Sabrina Tabby and Contemporaneous based on yiddish melodies written by his great-grandfather, Moses Schenkein. In 2022, he collaborated with librettist Patrick Smith to create an orchestrated song-cycle for soprano Erin O’Meally and The San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His latest project, The Albert Kahn Sonata, a multimedia collaboration with film-maker John Hanson and pianist Forrest Howell, will be premiered on September 6th, 2024, in Detroit’s famous Fisher Building lobby.

Michael is also an active music teacher, pianist, violinist, and conductor. He has taught classes at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College. He has also served as academic dean and faculty member at the Walden School Young Musicians Young Musician's Program in New Hampshire. He is currently on faculty at Gonzaga University as Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition.

He earned his doctoral degree in composition at The University of Michigan in 2022, where he studied with Kristin Kuster and Evan Chambers.  He received his Master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory in 2016, where he studied with David Conte, and his Bachelor’s degree from New York University in 2010, where he studied with Youngmi Ha and Justin Dello Joio. He has also received private study in composition from John Adams.

His work has received recognition from institutions including ASCAP, The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and The Music Teachers National Association.