Michael joined West Lothian Youth Theatre as Artistic Director in April 2004. He is also Producer for the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, and Co-Chair of Promote – YT, the national development agency for the youth theatre sector in Scotland.

Michael has worked in youth theatre for nearly 15 years. He founded Shrewsbury Youth Theatre in 1993 and was its Artistic Director until 2004. From 2002 he was the National Association of Youth Theatre’s coordinator in the West Midlands, and launched new youth theatre provision at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham in 2003.

In opera, Michael has worked as a staff director for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Opera Box, City of Birmingham Touring Opera and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has been a guest director on the Vocal Studies Course at the Birmingham Conservatoire. He regularly directs large-scale community opera projects, including a cycle of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.

In arts education Michael has devised and lead projects for Glyndebourne, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Caledonia, the Scottish Ballet and the Traverse Theatre, and was Education Officer for Mid Wales Opera for 9 years.