Michael Fennelly

Praised as a pianist with “flair and energy” (The New York Times), Bösendorfer artist MICHAEL FENNELLY received a knighthood in Spain honoring his historic completion of George Gershwin’s long-lost setting of Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano, symphonic chorus, and full orchestra which he premiered in Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. The Huffington Post exclaimed “Fennelly’s performance hit like a lightning bolt which catapulted the audience 2,000 feet in the air, taking them on a rocket-ride around the Chrysler building";

Following his concerto debut at age ten and his sold-out solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall, Michael was named the US winner of the Horowitz Competition in Kiev, was subsequently invited by the US State Department to perform American music on a tour in Japan, and has since toured extensively across the globe. Dr. Fennelly was on staff for many seasons at The Juilliard School and the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel and Alan Gilbert, and has recently joined the faculty of the United States Military Academy at West Point as professor of piano.

As a conductor, Maestro Fennelly serves as Music Director of the Athena Music Foundation and the Rockland Youth Symphony. During the pandemic he created the troupe Bad Boys of Opera which performed in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and continues to tour the US. Dr. Fennelly is currently on staff at the Metropolitan Opera and this season serves as assistant conductor in productions of Alcina and Turandot at St. Petersburg Opera and Roberto Devereux and La favorite at the Donizetti Festival with Riccardo Frizza in Bergamo, Italy.

Michael has regularly concertized with the world’s greatest musicians including Renée Fleming, Joshua Bell, and JoAnn Falletta, and has worked with Luciano Pavarotti, Itzakh Perlman, Placido Domingo, Angela Gheorghiu, and Renata Scotto. Michael shares a world record with Metallica in performing on all seven continents in one calendar year: China, Japan, Bhutan, Dubai, Macau, Hong Kong, Bora Bora, North and South America, Monte Carlo, Sweden, Spain, Morocco, Zimbabwe, and Antarctica. Fennelly has performed in many of the world's great concert halls including Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Munich’s Prinzregenten Theatre, Opéra de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, Berlin’s Komische Oper, the Aristotle Onassis Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Kosciuszko Foundation. This season Michael appears in Finland, Israel, China, and Carnegie Hall in a recital of Heine lieder with baritone Franco Pomponi.

Raised in California, Dr Fennelly holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied under the renowned pedagogue Dr. Nelita True and the legendary pianist Byron Janis and completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree with a dissertation on Metric Structure. His solo CD recordings include the albums The Legend of Faust, Debut Live from Carnegie

Hall, and Grand Tour.