About Michael Lewanski

Conductor, curator, educator, and writer Michael Lewanski is a champion of new and old musics. He seeks to facilitate engaged connections between audiences, musicians, composers, and the music that is part of their culture, society, and history. His work hopes to be part of collective, systemic change in the classical music industry. Based in Chicago, he is Conductor of Ensemble Dal Niente, Artistic Director of Lakeview Orchestra, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Performance Studies Department at the DePaul University School of Music, where he works to help the next generation of musicians become thoughtful artistic citizens.  

Michael was Curatorial Director of Ear Taxi Festival 2021, a festival of 21st century Chicago music. His wide-ranging guest-conducting has included work with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW Series, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Composers Conference, the National Symphony Orchestra of Turkmenistan, Ensamble CEPROMUSIC (Centro de Experimentación y Producción de Música Contemporánea, Mexico City), and the Seattle Modern Orchestra, among many others. He was resident conductor of the SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy in 2017 and 2019. Michael has an extensive discography on major European and US labels as both conductor and producer with Ensemble Dal Niente, Spektral Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, Grossman Ensemble, and others.

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Michael studied piano and violin in his youth; he made his conducting debut at age 13, leading his own composition. At 16, he was the youngest-ever student in the legendary Ilya Musin’s class at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He attended Yale University; he subsequently studied with Cliff Colnot (with whom he worked as conducting assistant at the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2010 to 2014)and Lucas Vis. He is based in Chicago, and respectfully acknowledges the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Odawa, Ho-Chunk, Myaaamia, Menominee, Peoria, and Illinois Confederacy among other tribal nations as custodians of the traditional Native land on which he lives and works.