Michael Twomey, DMA, holds degrees from the University of Montana (with high honors), Northwestern University, and the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. He has studied composition with Donald O. Johnston, Stephen Syverud, Alan Stout, Morris Cotel, Justin Dello Joio, and George Tsontakis. He made his conducting debut at age 15, at age 17 was the youngest recipient of a Montana Arts Council Grant, continuing at 19 to win the Great Falls Symphony Concerto Competition, and at 20, the prestigious Lowndes Maury Award in composition.
Other awards include the William Faricy Award for Creative Music, 2nd prize in the National Association of Composers U.S.A. Competition, 1st prize in the Society of Composers Competition, 1st prize in the Walla Walla Symphony New Music competition, and was a prize winner in the Bergen Music Festival Composers Competition, the Britten-on-the-Bay International Choral Composition contest, the Composers Guild Competition, and was one of six American composers selected as finalists for the Ladislav Kubik International Prize in Composition. He has also received grants from the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, the Peabody Institute, the Geiling Foundation, GALA Choruses, and the American Music Center. He has served as principal and assistant principal violist in the Prism Music Festival Orchestra, the Salt Creek Ballet Orchestra, the Northwest Indiana Symphony, the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber Orchestra (Ontario), and was a founding member of the Chicago-based Thorndyke String Quartet.
In addition to several other awards in composition and performance, Dr. Twomey has received commissions and performances from such ensembles as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Walla Walla Symphony, the Protege Philharmonic, New York University Contemporary Music Ensemble, New Music Chicago, the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa, the Ethnocentric Ensemble, the Soli Ensemble of the San Antonio Symphony, the Cosmos Trio, the Lydian Chamber Players, the Timaeus Ensemble, the Harrisburg Mens Chorus, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and the Ernst Bloch Music Festival. He has also been guest composer at the May in Miami Festival, the University of Iowa, Whitman College, Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, and was a former faculty member of Northern Michigan University and Dickinson College.