Composer
Michael Leake
About
A Brief Musical Bio
Michael Leake (Mike to his friends) began playing the guitar at age 11 and
picked up piano at 17 and bass guitar later. The Beatles were a huge and
lasting early influence, setting the bar high for quality and versatility in an
aspiring musician. By his late teens, he found himself a lead vocalist, rhythm
guitarist and pianist in a rock band, co-founded with a friend, and wrote a
great deal of music for that genre. After band members went their separate
creative ways a few years later, he began performing as a solo musician and
vocalist.
Desiring to expand his piano technique, he began to explore classical piano,
carefully breaking down and analyzing pieces he admired. As a result of
coursework in music history at the University of New Mexico, his already keen
interest in classical music--a term used loosely here to encompass the
Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods--was deepened. To this day, music
from the Romantic Era (roughly 1830 - 1900) remains his favorite classical
period, especially the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky--a Russian master of
heartfelt melody and creative orchestration.
About the same period of time he was tabbed to write the music for a
traditional stage musical, as a coworker knew someone who had written the
“book” for a musical as part of a graduate school project, including some
possible lyrics for a handful of songs, but the writer lacked a composer--an
essential element for any musical.
Research for this project quickly brought an appreciation for much of the
Broadway music from decades long past and a genuine admiration was born
for Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Richard Rodgers, Jerry Herman, and many
others. After a couple of months, a full musical stage production was born.
In more recent years, he undertook a study of orchestration, analyzing scores
and experimenting with the full orchestral palette, combining timbres and
colors for best effect. He has been actively involved in creating orchestral
pieces, large and small, in his home recording studio for over a decade.
Through it all, music and composing have been his passion. He writes music in
a variety of styles, from lush orchestral grandeur to simple atmospheric and
background pieces. He has a very large library of high quality orchestral and
other sound samples at his disposal to produce a wide range of music in a
variety of styles.
Copyright © 2009 - 2018 Michael Leake