Michael Essl (1991, Stuttgart) is a composer and versatile musician from Berlin. He writes music that is characterized by strong contrasts and a great richness of associations. He often combines complex formal structures with playful spontaneity and immediate expressiveness. His compositional oeuvre includes orchestral pieces, operas, chamber music, choral music and solo pieces, as well as pieces for jazz ensembles and music for silent films. He has received numerous awards for his compositions, including first prizes at international competitions such as the Alba Rosa Viëtor Competition and the Joseph Dorfman Competition. In 2022-24, he was Composer in Residence at the Junge Oper Dortmund and wrote a chamber opera based on the play “Mädchen in Not” by Anne Lepper, which was awarded the Mühlheimer Dramatikerpreis in 2017, and a children’s opera based on Marc-Uwe Kling’s “Das NEINhorn”. He has also worked with orchestras such as the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, the Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie, the Brandenburger Staatsorchester and many more. His works have been performed in Germany, the USA, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.
He has received scholarships from Edition Peters, “Klassik um Eins”, Deutscher Bühnenverein and the International Hanns Eisler Society.

Michael Essl is also a sought-after improviser. He performs regularly as a jazz pianist, preferably in small formations, with a focus on self-composed music. He is also active as a continuo player and performs with the Asambura Ensemble, sequere vocem and cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins, among others. With her, he reconstructed several pieces from Bonifazio Graziani’s “Antifone per diverse festività di tutto l’anno” in 2024, some of whose parts no longer exist, and recorded them at Champs Hill Studios in London for a CD production.

In addition, he is active as a conductor. A highlight of this activity was the musical direction of the artists’ collective “Lauratibor” in Berlin, with whom he performed a street opera with over 100 participants in 2022 as a form of political protest.

He is also an experienced arranger and has received commissions from ARTE, the Cinémathèque française, the Komische Oper Berlin and many others. He has written arrangements of historical works by Berlioz, Richard Strauss, Lili Boulanger, Ligeti, Mossolov and Pauline Viardot Garcia, for example, and arranged newly composed silent film music by Bernd Thewes and Marco Dalpane.

Furthermore, he has a long experience as a music engraver and has worked for various publishers such as Boosey & Hawkes, Breitkopf & Härtel and 2eleven, setting scores by composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Elena Kats-Chernin, Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, Bernd Thewes, Ulrike Haage, Andreas Peer Kähler, Volkmar Fritsche and Anders Ehlin.

Michael Essl first studied jazz piano with Hubert Nuss, Francesca Tanksley and Laszlo Gardony in Stuttgart and Boston, and then composition and music theory with Andrew List, Hanspeter Kyburz, Veli-Matti Puumala and Jörg Mainka in Boston, Berlin and Helsinki.