Mike D’Ambrosio’s music has been performed by the Philadelphia Brass, Monarch Brass, Catskill Brass Quintet, Shepherd School Brass Choir (Rice University), Cincinnati Camerata, Indiana University Brass Choir, Oklahoma State University Concert Chorale, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) Symphony Band, CCM Brass Choir, University of South Carolina Concert Choir, Louisiana State University Schola Cantorum, Lehigh University Wind Ensemble, and by soloists and chamber musicians throughout the United States. His Wind on the Island won both the 2009 Cincinnati Camerata Composition Competition and 2007 University of South Carolina Choral Composition Contest and was performed in June 2008 at the Cultural Prelude to the Olympics at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. Its predecessor In You the Earth, also a Pablo Neruda setting, won the 2006 Arant Choral Composition Prize given by the University of Georgia and was performed at the College Music Society's 2008 SuperRegional Conference at LSU. Mike has also received ASCAPLUS Awards for the past five years and has music published by Dorn Publications and Triplo Press.

Recent commissions include the Kentucky Center's Governor School for the Arts Faculty Quintet, Celeste Johnson (Professor of Oboe at Oklahoma State University), Larry Wyatt (Director of Choral Studies at the University of South Carolina), Murray State Trumpet Ensemble, Dirk Garner (Director of Choral Studies at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory), and the Lee High School Band Commissioning Project (Lee, MA) that culminated with a three-day residency before the premiere. In 2003 Mike wrote Milligan's Wake, a wind ensemble piece dedicated to and commissioned by Terence Milligan, Director of the Symphony Band at CCM, to celebrate his 25th year of service to that institution. (Click here for press release of anniversary concert). The previous year, Mike was commissioned by the Society for the Preservation of Music Hall to write a fanfare to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the downtown Cincinnati landmark. In June 2000, his Out From Under was performed by the Monarch Brass as part of the International Women's Brass Conference and was subsequently included on the group's CD. In addition, Mike's Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano is included in Anthony Balester's "Outstanding Contemporary Saxophone Works and Recordings."

Mike D'Ambrosio has been Assistant Professor of Music at Murray State University in western Kentucky since fall 2008. He teaches courses related to music theory and composition, and is the coordinator of the theory area. He has held previous teaching positions at Jacksonville State University (AL), Oklahoma State University, University of Dayton, and Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). He received his D.M.A. and M.M. degrees in music composition from CCM where he studied with Joel Hoffman and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (now at Eastman). Originally from Long Island, New York, Mike did his undergraduate work at Lehigh University where he double-majored in music and accounting. His composition professor there, Paul Salerni, was easily one of the most influential people in his life.

Website: www.MikeDAmbrosio.net