Biography
New England native Michael T. Roberts is a guitarist, composer, singer-songwriter, and teacher who resides in Berkeley, CA with his wife Mindy and fourteen stringed instruments. He picked up the guitar at age ten, four long years after watching his first Van Halen video. Over the years, his study of the guitar has introduced him to a wide spectrum of musical styles—from rock to jazz, funk, and bluegrass, from classical to samba and nuevo tango—all of which have found their way onto his artistic palette.
As a composer (recently graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Master of Music degree) Mike brings his vernacular roots to the concert music tradition, striving to create art that pushes boundaries while remaining strongly rooted in his native idioms. As a songwriter, Mike brings his love of words and notes together in a stylistically eclectic stew of philosophy, autobiography, and storytelling. As a guitar player, Mike switch-hits between electric rock, funk, and jazz; steel-string acoustic folk and fingerstyle; and nylon-string classical and Latin, combining his unique (some might say wacky) musical sensibilities with years of study under such greats as Ken Volpe of New Canaan, CT, Dave Creamer of Oakland, CA, David Newsom and John Muratore of Dartmouth College, Gary Ryan of the Royal College of Music (London) and Norm Zocher of the Berklee College of Music. At the San Francisco Conservatory, Mike has been coached by David Tanenbaum, Marc Teicholz, Richard Savino, and Larry Ferrara.
Recent Work
2008 has been a year of fruition, with Mike producing two major concerts showcasing his recent work ('The Guitar Concert' in January and 'Explore the History of Michael T. Roberts' in May). In March 2007 Mike took first prize at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Art Song Competition with his setting of the Wendell Berry poem, "The Mad Farmer Revolution," a ditty which seems to work equally well for soprano and piano or Mike's voice and steel-string guitar. Mike followed that win with one in SFCM's Ring Tone Competition, composing and recording a 30-second ringtone (on the ukulele) for the winner of a local classical radio contest. 2007 also saw the completion of the Cervantes Suite, seven movements for solo classical guitar inspired by a remarkable series of events: in the same year Mike received a new translation of Don Quijote (by Cervantes), purchased a Cervantes classical guitar, and moved to a new apartment on Cervantes Blvd. In December 2006, his Sufi Qawwali-inspired piece I Will Sing of Your Love, When Will You Come to Me? (for woodwind quintet, soprano, double bass and percussion), a prayer for the Middle East from Psalms 101 and 102, was premiered by San Francisco Conservatory's New Music Ensemble. In May 2006 the Choate Rosemary Hall Orchestra (Wallingford, CT) premiered Mary Magdalene Sails to Gaul (for orchestra and jazz quintet).
Hear this music in the MTR JukeboxDartmouth, New York, and Stand Up Eight
After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 2000, Mike spent a year in New York City working, playing guitar at jam sessions, and writing songs with the BMI Musical Theater Workshop before moving with his band Stand Up Eight to the San Francisco bay area in 2001. There he opened a teaching studio in guitar, mandolin, and ukulele (see the Lessons section), which continues to bring the good word to students of all ages.
Mike joined Stand Up Eight in 1996 as a freshman at Dartmouth, playing his first show at the famed Alpha Delta fraternity—inspiration for the legendary film "Animal House." Riding the adrenaline wave of a hundred frat shows, Stand Up Eight released their first CD, Dance with Gravity, in 1997. The band soon took their act to the clubs of Boston, New York, and the hinterlands of Northern New England, and in 1998 they took home honors for Best New Band of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year in Jam Music Magazine’s Reader’s Poll. In 2000, before going on a sabbatical that would last nearly two years, they released their follow-up album Facing the Fall, which took home wins for Album of the Year and a nomination for Song of the Year (“Rising Tide”) in the 2001 Jam Music Magazine poll. After two years of performing and songwriting in the San Francisco area, the band officially dissolved in 2003. Nonetheless, they continue to collaborate periodically on new songs (available for free download at standupeight.net).
Music for the Theater: An Abiding Passion
Many years earlier, during his senior year at the prep school Choate Rosemary Hall, Mike began composing a musical theatre piece entitled A Legend of My Lai. Nearly four years later at Dartmouth, he completed the work as the opera Lotus Blooming in a Sea of Fire, spending his senior year composing the opera’s entire book, music, and lyrics. He also produced and musically directed its premiere, which took place on May 24, 2000 to great acclaim.
In 2003, Michael served as musical director and artist-in-residence at Blake School of the Arts in Tampa, FL for Lotus's second—and first fully-staged—production, under the brilliant direction of Eric Davis. Eric and Mike are currently collaborating on a musical adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play Peer Gynt.
Mike composed the music and provided guitar accompaniment for two plays at UC Berkeley: The Stories of Eva Luna (2005) and Tooth and Nail (2004) (Find out more in the Projects section). He has also lent his guitar skills to a UC Berkeley production of Marat/Sade (2004), and Dartmouth College productions of Evita (2005) and Jesus Christ Superstar (2002).
In the fall of 2000 Michael collaborated with composer Bruce Molloy on the revival of Passion Play, a one-act musical pageant depicting the final hours of Jesus’s life. The show was given its first workshop performances at the Presbyterian Church of New Providence, NJ in October 2000. In addition to penning new music, lyrics, and book material, Michael served as assistant to the director and musical director, and played guitar in the pit band and on the CD recording of the show.
Michael has shared the stage with such legends as Lester Bowie, the Sun Ra Arkestra, and Jerry Jeff Walker, has taught music and writing to scores of students ranging from age seven to seventy, and has never doubted the power of passion, faith, hard work, and creativity.