Michael A. Barren loves to hike and swim. His favorite colors are red, green, blue, and purple. He loves the fall when the leaves turn wonderful colors in the forest. He is an avid board game player with a love for strategy games. He appreciates literature with an emphasis on ancient Greek and Roman literature. His ideal subjects in school were math and science with a particular love of astronomy and the solar system.

Since growing up, Michael has loved two things above all else: music and teaching. From singing in the children’s choir at his church when he was four, starting percussion lessons when he was five, starting piano lessons when he was seven, all the way to composing when he was twelve, music has been a constant in his life since early childhood. Michael considers himself to be a professional composer, pianist, and music theorist. He is also an amateur organist, percussionist, and vocalist.

Michael has served as a teaching fellow at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama; a graduate-teaching assistant for piano and music theory at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio; a music teacher at Music 101 in Cortland, Ohio; and currently teaches general music and piano at the Music Studio in Albany, New York. He hopes to continue his education so that he can become a composition professor at a college or university.