TOC presents Lunchtime FREE Concerts every FIRST, SECOND, and THIRD Wednesday of the month. Our gift to the community for over 56 years, join us in person or on our Youtube Channel.

Brian Michael, piano

To honor the two people who inspired his music career, this concert will be a tribute to his mother Sandra Ann Schori Michael (August 7, 1936-September 13, 2021) and to Vladimir Horowitz (1904-1989). The program will include works of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff that appeared on the original Horowitz recital in 1976 which inspired his return to study piano, and will be played for the first time by Brian to a live audience. Rounding out the program will be other 19th century Romantic era/style composers. 

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When he was 4 years old, Brian Michaels’ mom started teaching him piano, and though he hated it, she wouldn’t let him quit! Hearing Virgil Fox in concert, Brian was then inspired to take organ lessons instead. His first solo concerts at The Old Church’s Lunchtime Concert Series (they were called Brown Bag Concerts in the 1970s) were on TOC’s own Hook & Hastings 1883 Tracker Organ at ages 11, 12 and 13 as a 6th, 7th and 8th grader. After hearing Vladimir Horowitz’s 1976 Portland Oregon’s recital, Brian was inspired to switch back to piano, this time studying with a real pianist. (His mom was a music teacher who played basic piano but whose own instruments were tenor sax and oboe). 

He's been a piano accompanist for Oregon Ballet Theater, Portland State University, UCLA and Beverly Hills HS. He has done 160 productions of musicals in Portland and Los Angeles, including over 50 as music director.