Michael Nunes is a Canadian composer and horn player from Sherwood Park, Alberta. He is committed to a holistic approach to music, working as a performer, composer, conductor, arranger, engraver, and educator with organizations across North America. He is currently a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School. Michael holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition with a Certificate in Music Technology from the University of Toronto and a Master of Music in Horn Performance from the Juilliard School. He has studied composition with Gary Kulesha, Lowell Liebermann, James Rolfe, Larysa Kuzmenko and Allan Gilliland, and horn with Erik Ralske, Eric Reed, Gabriel Radford, Nicholas Hartman, and Allene Hackleman. As a conductor he has studied under Jeffrey Milarsky, Uri Meyer, and Gillian MacKay.

As a soloist, Michael has performed Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1 with the Abreu Chamber Orchestra, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings with the Westside Chamber Players, and his own arrangement of Bozza’s En Forêt with the Hannaford Street Silver Band. Michael has performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and in festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Brott Music Festival, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute, Domaine Forget, and Musicfest Canada’s Denis Wick Canadian Wind Orchestra. As principal horn, he has represented the Juilliard Orchestra in performances at the Kennedy Center, David Geffen Hall, and Alice Tully Hall. During his undergraduate degree he performed in the University of Toronto’s Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble and was a guest musician in the university’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has performed in youth ensembles such as the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, the Hannaford Youth Band, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the Edmonton Senior Youth Orchestra. Michael has conducted the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in performances of Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question and Matthew Emery’s Lead Us Home across their 2024 and 2025 tours respectively.

As a composer, arranger, and engraver, Michael has collaborated with organizations including the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Hannaford Street Silver Band, Boris Brott and the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, Juilliard Vocal Arts, the Ontario Provincial Honour Band, the Toronto Tuba and Euphonium Symposium, the Parkdale Orchestra, the Northumberland Orchestra, the Opera From Scratch Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Brass Ensemble. In 2019 he co-founded Green Room Sound Collective, a collective dedicated to providing professional cross-discipline experiences to early-career artists. Michael has composed for, conducted, and commissioned works for Green Room Sound Collective including an audio-visual virtual art gallery, various choral works, and his own chamber opera Union.

Michael serves as an Ear Training faculty member in the Juilliard School’s Extension Division and is a teaching fellow in the Ear Training and Theory departments of the College Division. He has taught brass, composition, and theory both privately and through Classic Studios in Sherwood Park, Alberta and the P.A.L.S. teaching program at the Aspen Music Festival. He has been a guest educator at Music Together of the Northern Lights and at masterclasses facilitated by the University of Toronto and the Hannaford Youth Band. Michael is currently pursuing a DMA in Horn Performance at The Juilliard School. He is also a substitute horn player with the New World Symphony. Michael is a member of SOCAN and the Canadian League of Composers.