Michael Horvit
Professor of Composition and Music Theory

e-mail: mhorvit@uh.edu
office: MSM 134
office phone: (713)743-3164
address: 120 School of Music Bldg, UH, Houston, TX 77204-4017

Hear a composition by Michael Horvit: The Moores School Symphony Orchestra: Daughters of Jerusalem.

Dr. Michael Horvit is Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Houston Moores School of Music. For 25 years he served as music director at Congregation Emanu El, Houston. During his studies at Yale University (B. MUS. and M. MUS.), Tanglewood, Harvard, and Boston University where he received his DMA degree, his teachers were Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Walter Piston, Quincy Porter and Gardner Read. In turn, Dr. Horvit has taught two generations of students at the University of Houston .

Widely performed in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Israel, Michael Horvit's works, available from several publishers, range from solo instrumental and vocal pieces to large symphonic compositions and operas. Recently, he has been the featured composer and lecturer at Hendrix College in Arkansas, the New Music Festival at South Dakota State University, the LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore, the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra, and the Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra, Luleå, Sweden. CDs of his works are available on the Albany label: Troy #134, Music of Michael Horvit, and #265, Daughters of Jerusalem. Even When God Is Silent and A Child's Journey, based on poems of Israeli poet Yaakov Barzilai, were recently released on a CD by the Master Chorale of Washington, Albany-Troy #352 .

During the 1996-7 seasons, Maestro Leon Spierer performed his Invocation and Exultation for String Orchestra with several orchestras throughout Europe and Japan.  On October 11 this year, Maestro Spierer again performed Invocation and Exultation in Tokio with the Chamber Ensemble of Japan.  A Childs Journey, was performed in April 1998 by the Polish Youth Choir at an international commemorative ceremony at Auschwitz, and in March 1999 in Warsaw. His cantata in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the funding of the State of Israel, Land of Dreams, received multiple premiere performances in several cities throughout the U.S. in 1998-99 and was performed in the Moores Opera House in April 2000. In June 2001, he toured Germany with the Bach Choir of Houston. His music was performed in Luebeck, Dresden, Meissen, Arnstadt, Eisenach and Leipzig .

The Mystic Flame, a choral symphony for large symphony orchestra, choir, and soloists, was released on CD by Albany Records in 2002: Albany, Troy #533l and The Wide Missouri, a CD of chamber music, Albany, Troy #851, became available in summer 2006.

Dr. Horvit is co-author of four widely used theory texts published by Thomson/Schirmer and Oxford University Press. He is the recipient of awards from organizations that include B.M.I., ASCAP, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fridge Trust, and the University of Houston.