Seyfrit, Michael

Biography

Michael Seyfrit, composer, instrumentalist, writer, and teacher, was born in Lawrence, Kansas, on December 16, 1947, and was raised in Pasco, Washington, and Piqua, Ohio. He earned a B.Mus. and an M.Mus at the University of Kansas, a second M.Mus. at The Julliard School (1972), and a D.M.A. at the University of Southern California (1974). Seyfrit did research and historical orchestrations for the Smithsonian Institution s Divisions of Musical Instruments and Performing Arts, and served as a curator of musical instruments at the Library of Congress for four years, during which time he compiled volume 1 of the catalogue of musical instruments in the Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection (1982). He also wrote the articles on woodwind instruments for the 1986 edition of The New Harvard Dictionary of Music . As a composer, Seyfrit received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the national Academy of Arts and Letters. Seyfrit was also active as an instrumentalist on recorder, baroque oboe, and baroque flute, and performed and recorded with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, as well as Hesperus, Wondrous Machine, the Berkeley Collegium Musicum, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, and the Early Music Guild of Oregon. He spent his final years working as a computer programmer. He died of AIDS in Portland, Oregon, on May 29, 1994, at the age of 46.

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