Geoffrey Michaels

Education

At the age of 16 he went to the United States to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied violin with Efrem Zimbalist, and violin and viola with Oscar Shumsky.

Career

Geoffrey Michaels began taking violin lessons at the age of five, and was soon recognized as a prodigy. He then pursued a solo career, winning the fourth annual Emma Feldman Competition in Philadelphia, and placing among the finalists in the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris, and the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he played Zimbalist’s ‘Coq d’Or Fantasy. He has been a professor at Florida State University and at the University of British Columbia.

Michaels currently lives in the Philadelphia area.

Achievements

• At 14, he became the youngest performer ever to win the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s concerto competition, and made his first recording, which sold out within a few weeks of its release.

Membership

While still a student he became a member of the Curtis String Quartet. He is a founding member of the Liebesfreud Quartet and has also performed in many other chamber ensembles, including the Janus Piano Trio, Performers" Committee for Twentieth Century Music (New York), Richardson Chamber Players (Princeton), and Vancouver New Music Society.