Biography of Michael J. Lewis 

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Award-winning composer Michael J. Lewis first performed as a professional musician as a six-year-old choirboy in Aberystwyth, Wales. By the age of ten, he was organist at three churches, where he learned to improvise at weddings while the impatient bridegroom and assembled guests waited for the bride to appear. He moved to London in his late teens to study harmony, counterpoint, and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It was here that he first discovered 2Oth century music by composers such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, and William Walton. It was at this time that he fell under the spell of films such as the early Bond series, and decided that grand scale, romantic film scoring was where his future lay.

In 1968 British director Bryan Forbes invited Lewis to compose the score for The Madwoman of Chaillot, starring Katherine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, and Yul Brynner. Lewis's first film score earned him England's prestigious Ivor Novello Award. Subsequent film scores include Charlton Heston's Julius Caesar, TheMedusa Touch, with Richard Burton and Lee Remick, and Theatre of Blood, with Vincent Price and Diana Rigg.

1972 found Lewis in New York working with the late Anthony Burgess on a Broadway musical, Cyrano, starring Christopher Plummer. Plummer won a Tony Award for his performance, and Lewis and Burgess received a coveted Grammy nomination. During the years that followed, Lewis produced music for commercials for major American companies such as IBM, Ford, Löwenbrau, Canon, and the U.S. Treasury.

Moving to California in 1982, Lewis collaborated with director Franklin J. Shaffner on Sphinx and Yes, Giorgio, with Luciano Pavarotti. His work in television ultimately resulted in an Emmy for his score for the animated film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. TNT's feature movie, Rose and the Jackal, starring Christopher Reeve, earned him an Ace nomination. His work is available on two CDs produced by Pen Dinas, a record label he created to introduce Welsh music, both traditional and contemporary, to the record-buying public.

As founding director of Côr Cymraeg De Califfornia, Michael J Lewis brings his love of Welsh music to new audiences. Dedicated to the rediscovery of his country's centuries-old musical tradition, Michael J. Lewis features the finest young musical talent in Wales today in his choral concerts. His dramatic arrangements of traditional Welsh hymns thrill choristers and listeners alike, while the intimate beauty of his newest song cycle touches the hearts of young and old. As Paul Dimond, Consul General of Great Britain, commented following the November 1998 concert at Mount St. Mary's College Chapel, "Michael J. Lewis and his choir have indeed raised hearts afire in Southern California."

Please also see  In The Language Of Heaven

and  The Romantic Splendour of Wales

and information on  Côr Cymraeg De Califfornia