City of Four

About the Artist

City of Four
Brighton, MA
Grant amount: $8,334

In addition to playing and writing for City of Four, Mike leads his own quartet and performs with many of the region’s premiere bands and jazz collectives, including with Guggenheim fellow Felipe Salles’ Interconnections Ensemble, which just released its third critically-acclaimed album.

Mike has played saxophone in historic venues ranging from Boston’s Symphony Hall to legendary Manhattan jazz clubs like Birdland, Dizzy’s, and The Jazz Gallery.

Mike has had the privilege to perform on stage with iconic figures including Sean Jones, Warren Wolf, Ambrose Akinmusire, Randy Brecker, Dick Oatts, Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan, Chico Pinheiro, and Karrin Allyson when he was a student. Mike is an active freelancer and is contracted to perform in concerts with nationally-touring groups across multiple genres, like with the platinum-selling rock group, 10,000 Maniacs, in some of their recent MA shows.

In 2019, Mike was named winning composer in the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest for his piece, “That Familiar Connection”. As a composer, he has also received a Herb Alpert Foundation Young Jazz Composer award from ASCAP for his composition, “Time to Go”. Through the course of his college studies, Mike accumulated five music awards from DownBeat Magazine for his performances and musical arrangements. Mike is a commissioned composer of jazz, chamber, and symphonic music.

A graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mike holds a Master of Music in Jazz Arranging and Composition. He earned his bachelor’s degrees at UMass in Jazz and Afro-American Music as well as Acoustics. At UMass, Mike studied with Felipe Salles, Lynn Klock, Jeffrey W. Holmes, and Tom Giampietro. Mike’s early saxophone mentors include William DiNuzzio and Corey Tunnessen.