The University of Findlay - Micheal F. Anders, Ph.D.

A native of Southeast Texas, Anders holds a B.S. degree in Vocal Music Education from Lamar University (1976) in Beaumont, Texas, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Phi. In 1979, he received a Master of Music degree in Music Literature plus Vocal Performance from Lamar. Anders earned his Ph.D. in Historical Musicology in 1997 from The Ohio State University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Kappa Lambda.

Conductor: The UF Concert-Chorale and The Findlay-Area Community Chorus
Director: "Univeristy Singers"
Producer/Music Director/Conductor: annual spring musical production

Courses: Survey of American Musical Theatre (I & II), Applied Music: Voice, Music Fundamentals, Music Theory, Music History

Special Topic Courses:
Masterworks of Vocal Literature
Twentieth Century American Music
Who Could Ask for Anything More?: The Life & Works of George Gershwin
Giacomo Puccini & His Tragic Women
High Flying Adored: The Life & Works of Andrew Lloyd Webber Requiem in pace: Music of Mourning & Consolation
The Sound of His Music: The Life & Works of Richard Rodgers
Show Boat: An American Musical Landmark
Lost in Translation: The American Musical from Broadway to Hollywood

Anders has received The UF Founders Academic Excellence Award (1996), The Elizabeth S. Gupta Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Fine Arts (2008), The UF Alumni Association Arch Award (2008) and has been honored with an endowed vocal music scholarship named for him. With numerous recital, choral, musical and operatic performance credits, in the last several years Anders has become more and more associated with conducting. In addition to his work at UF, since fall 2003, Anders has served as conductor/musical director for the Heidelberg College musical theatre productions.

Dissertation: Musical & Dramatical Structures in the Finales of the Operas of Giacomo Puccini

Scholarly interests: American musical theatre, Italian opera at the turn of the 20th century, American song literature.

Member of American Musicology Society (Midwest Chapter), National Association of Teachers of Singing (Buckeye Chapter), Ohio/American Choral Directors Association, National Collegiate Choral Organization, Society for American Music, Music Library Association, Metropolitan Opera Guild, College Music Society, Ohio Vocal Arts Resource Network, Arts Partnership of Greater Hancock County (Ohio)

Musical theatre direction: No, No, Nannette; The Sound of Music; The King and I; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; 1776; Of Thee I Sing; Once Upon a Mattress; Call Me Madam; Follies; Brigadoon; Gypsy; The Music Man; Camelot; Girl Crazy; Fiddler on the Roof; REX; Carousel; The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Shenandoah; Godspell; Promises, Promises; Two from Galilee; King Island Christmas; Threepenny Opera; Bells Are Ringing; The Secret Garden; Into the Woods; Carnival; South Pacific; The Pajama Game; Naughty Marietta.

Major choral works conducted: Handel's Messiah (period performance, the 1789 Mozart arrangement, and the 1959 Goosens/Beecham arrangement); the Mozart, Faure and Rutter Requiems; Vivaldi and Rutter Glorias; Britten's Ceremony of Carols and St. Nicolas; Haydn's The Creation; Puccini's Messa di Gloria; miscellaneous Masses by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert; Randall Thompson's Testament of Freedom; Of Time and Eternity by Mary Elizabeth Caldwell; Rutter's Magnificat and When Icicles Hang; Five Mystical Songs by Vaughan Williams; Ruth (Ohio premie) by Texas composer Paul Holmes; The Many Moods of Christmas by Shaw/Bennett; Sing We Now of Christmas! by Simeone; and numerous other smaller works.

Presented the "world premiere revival" production of the Richard Rodgers/Sheldon Harnick/Sherman Yellen musical-play, REX, as part of the 2002 International Richard Rodgers Centennial Celebration. The University of Findlay production was attended by Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick; Theodore S. Chapin, President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (NYC); Bert Fink, Vice-President for Public Relations at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Orgnaization (NYC); and persons from 14 different states and Great Britain. In addition to the actual musical production, a lecture-concert was presented with Harnick as the featured guest. At this concert, five "unknown" songs originally written for REX by Rodgers and Harnick were given their world premieres.

Conductor/Musical Director for the Heidelberg Musical Theatre production of Pippin (October 2009).

Conductor/Musical Director for The University of Findlay production of The Pajama Game (February 2010).

Conductor of The UF Concert-Chorale performance of Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta in celebration of the operetta's centennial year.