Michael studied music at the University of East Anglia and the Royal College of Music. He joined Scottish Ballet in 1972, conducting Nutcracker, Giselle, La Sylphide and short ballets. He has returned as a guest conductor for Tales of Hoffmann and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

In 1976 Michael joined the Staatstheater Kassel and made his operetta debut with Merry Widow and Offenbach’s Duke Bluebeard. He conducted operas (including Lohengrin, Falstaff, Tosca, Cunning Little Vixen and Katya Kabanova) and ballet (Stravinsky’s Firebird and Fairy’s Kiss), also forming a piano trio and becoming chorus master of the Kasseler Konzertchor. In 1980 he moved to Stuttgart, conducting Britten’s Albert Herring, Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmerman, Orff’s Die Kluge and Henxe’s Pollicino. He was also associate chorus master for the Stuttgart Philharmonische Vokale Ensemble, the Suddeutscher Madrigalchor and the South German Radio Chorus and active in chamber music and as a continuo player.

ENO includes: Madama Butterfly (1986 conducting debut), a new production of L’Elisir d’Amore in 1998, revivals of Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Bohème, the European premiere of Philip Glass’s Planet 8, Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlos, Rigoletto, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Don Pasquale, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Don Giovanni, Pacific Overtures, The Cunning Little Vixen, Nabucco and The Pearlfishers, Turn of the Screw (also 1990 USSR tour) and Carmen.

Michael has conducted in Japan and Korea, New Zealand and Macau. He has directed performances of Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda from the keyboard (QEH), conducted concerts with the London Concert Orchestra (RFH and Barbican), the Salomon Orchestra (St John’s, Smith Square) and concert performances with the Chelsea Opera Group of Massenet’s Thais and Herodiade, Chabrier’s Le Roi Malgre Lui, Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, Bizet’s Djamileh and Gomes’s Il Guarany (QEH). Recently: Tosca for Singapore Lyric Opera and debuts with the Bournemouth Symphony, Ulster Orchestra and Den Norske Opera Ballet in Oslo, L’Elisir d’Amore for Opera Holland Park and English National Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker.

In 2007 he returns to New Zealand to conduct the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, in addition to the Songquest finals of that year. Michael is music director of Birmingham Philharmonic and the Chandos Symphony Orchestra.