Welcome! A native of Detroit, Michigan, I now live just outside Detroit in Dearborn Hts., where I attended Divine Child High School, worked in Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and studied oboe with Brian Ventura of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
My interests in music have been developing from the time I began piano lessons at age six. Since then, I have definitely found it to be the driving force behind every aspect of my life. When the time eventually came for me to join the Divine Child Elementary School band, my instrument of choice was the oboe, although I gradually introduced myself to other members of the woodwind family. Throughout high school, I was extremely active in a number of performing ensembles and competitions, and in my sophomore year at Divine Child, I began expressing myself through my own compositions. I received a competitive scholarship from the Dearborn Orchestral Society to be used toward my private studies. Words are spoken and defined. Through music, we are offered the opporunity to redefine abstract collections of sound into any form through which we are most comfortable interpreting it.
In my third year at the University of Dayton, I am studying composition with Dr. Phillip Magnuson, and oboe with Chris Philpotts. Previously, I studied oboe with Mark Twehues, S.M. I also work as a lab supervisor in UD's Musical Arts Learning Lab tutor music theory, and work technical support for Sears Recital Hall. I currently currently play the oboe and English horn in the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the University Orchestra,Chamber Winds, and in the "Flyer Winds" woodwind quintet, coached by Dr. Christine Todey. I serve as vice president of the Phi Omega chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a professional music fraternity. I look forward to continuing my education and growing as a musician with the help of these and many other dedicated faculty members.
Within our universe, there exists a constantly changing web of patterns
and systems that govern the workings of that universe.Because they
are changing ever slowly, the time in between is marked by intense universal
routine. The interactions of these systems and patterns can seldom
be predicted, however. Therefore, in my own works, I prefer to use
this model of the universe, coupled with my tiny understanding of these
systems to, to put forth my best imitation of everyday processes in less
familiar aural forms of structure, chance, and repetition.
Listen to Michael
Berkowski and Jennifer Shoup perform
the beginning of the fourth movement of:
Listen to Michael
Berkowski and Tiraje Ruckman perform the opening of
Listen to Michael
Berkowski and Tiraje Ruckman perform the beginning of the second movement of:
Listen to Ben
McBrayer , Joe Agosto, and Melissa
Shuster perform Michael Berkowski's
Listen to several
more of my compositions on the Student Composers'
Page