Michael won a music scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford and after graduating he went to the Royal College of Music to study vocal accompaniment with Roger Vignoles.  While still at college, he was taken on by Welsh National Opera with whom he has enjoyed a long association, firstly as a member of music staff (during which time he was responsible for the musical preparation of more than seventy operas ranging from Monteverdi to Tippett, working closely with conductors such as Sir Reginald Goodall, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Richard Armstrong, Pierre Boulez and Carlo Rizzi) and latterly as freelance Vocal Consultant; he has also worked for Music Theatre Wales on several contemporary projects including Maxwell Davies’s ‘The Lighthouse’ and the world première of Michael Berkeley’s ‘Jane Eyre’.  He is also a vocal coach for the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, and a guest tutor in London for the National Opera Studio, the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, the Young Singers’ Programme at English National Opera, and the Royal Academy of Music (where he has recently been awarded an Honorary Associateship).    

Michael also has an active career as an accompanist: in 2006 he accompanied Bryn Terfel on a recital tour of Asia and Australia, having previously given recitals with him in the UK and in Norway; in 2008 they gave a recital together in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.  Other singers whom he has accompanied in international recitals and recordings include Dame Anne Evans, Rebecca Evans, Nuccia Focile, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Katarina Karnéus, Christopher Maltman, Dennis O’Neill, Ailish Tynan and Sir Willard White.  He acted as official accompanist for the Cardiff Singer of the World competition on three occasions and has frequently broadcast on Radio 3.  He has recently recorded a disc of English songs with the baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore, and they have future plans for discs of Italian and French songs.