About

Music as a way of life…

Michael Hartigan is a composer, arranger, orchestrator, and producer, living in Burlington, Vermont. Growing up in Potsdam, New York, Michael began music lessons at the age of six, and was performing regularly with a variety of local musicians by age twelve. He studied piano performance and music theory at the Crane School of Music, and composing and arranging at Berklee College of Music, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2006. He moved to Vermont in 2016 after periods of living in Boston and Chicago. A dynamic and versatile performer, Michael is highly sought after and active in Vermont’s music communities. While Jazz is a main focus of his playing, he is equally comfortable in the worlds of Pop/Rock, Blues, Latin, Country, Folk, and Classical music, and he is occasionally seen performing on violin, accordion, electric bass, or as a vocalist, in addition to his work as a pianist. He plays the piano and organ and directs the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shelburne, VT. on Sunday mornings, and is seen regularly in Burlington and the surrounding area performing as a solo pianist, accompanying singers and choirs, and with numerous ensembles such as:

Anthony Santor Trio
Better Angels
Chicken Fat Injection
Chris Peterman Quartet
Cody Sargent Trio
Dan Ryan Express
Lovecraft
Mal Maïz
Ray Vega’s Latin Jazz Sextet
The Sixth Finger of Jazz

In addition to his regular appearances in the Vermont music scene, Michael takes several trips each year to Chicago to work with brilliant songwriter and great friend Ralph Covert, as well as traveling for occasional shows in New York and Nashville.

Finding The Essence…

Between performances, Hartigan keeps busy with a variety of collaborative creative projects as a session musician, producer, composer, arranger, and orchestrator. Each project is unique and draws on a different combination of Michael’s ever-evolving resource of musical knowledge, skills and intuition. He’s written educational choral arrangements for Hal Leonard, helped lyricists set their words to music, composed original instrumental music for video projects, written orchestrations for the soundtracks of the Destiny series of games, worked closely with songwriters to craft arrangements of their songs for the recording studio and for live performances with orchestras, big bands, string quartets, and countless other ensembles, helped composers to professionally notate their original music, laid down piano, organ, and many other instrumental tracks for inclusion in recording projects. While projects may be vastly different from one another, the common denominator is Michael’s dedication to understanding the vision of his collaborators, and finding the right combination of his skills and resources to fully bring the dreams to reality, consistently exceeding expectations. He endeavors to learn something new with each project and is always seeking new opportunities to grow and collaborate.