Michael McLean is a composer, violinist, violist, and educator who recently relocated to Traverse City, Michigan, after more than twenty-five years in Los Angeles, where he served on the faculties of the Colburn School and Santa Monica College. His career spans over three decades of teaching, performing, and composing in the United States and internationally, and he is widely respected for his ability to unite technical rigor with musical depth and structural clarity. Many of his students in violin, viola, and composition have gone on to study at leading conservatories and university programs across the country.
McLean earned his B.M. in Violin Performance from Northwestern University, where he also studied composition, counterpoint, and orchestration, and later completed a certificate in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television at the University of Southern California. He is a frequent guest clinician, having taught in more than forty U.S. states and internationally, and has taught on the music of Bach at Juilliard. He has presented numerous times at conferences of the Suzuki Association of the Americas.
A dedicated Suzuki educator, McLean studied pedagogy with Yuko Honda, Barbara Barber, and John Kendall. As a composer, he has written more than one hundred works for orchestral, chamber, educational, and film settings. His string orchestra work Lux Aeterna, commissioned by the Gifted Music School in Salt Lake City, was featured in a national radio broadcast and interview with Bill McGlaughlin on Exploring Music. His music has also been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, and he remains active as a performer in orchestral and chamber ensembles.