American cl*ical composer

Michael Abels (born October 8, 1962) is an American composer and producer best known for his scores for the Oscar-winning film Get Out, and Us. As a concert composer, Abels has received grants from the United States National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, and the Sphinx Organization, among others. His orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and others. As guest conductor of Get Out In Concert, Abels has led orchestras including the National Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Several of his orchestral works have been recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta and released on Cedille Records, including Delights & Dances and Global Warming. Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, game and streaming media.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Filmography
  • 2.1 Other works
• 3 Awards and nominations
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Early life

Abels was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He spent his early years on a small farm in South Dakota, where he lived with his grandparents. Introduced to music via the family piano, he began showing an innate curiosity towards music at age 4. His music-loving grandparents convinced the local piano teacher to take him on as a student despite his age. At age 8, Abels began composing music, and by age 13, his first completed orchestral work was performed.

Upon graduating from high school, Abels attended the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. Abels, who is mixed race, eventually studied West African drumming techniques at California Ins*ute for the Arts, and sang in a predominantly black church choir to further explore his African-American roots.

Filmography

Composer

• Get Out (2017)
• Us (2019)
• See You Yesterday (2019)
• All Day and a Night (2020)
• Bad Education (2020)
• Nightbooks (2021)
• Nope (2022)
• 892 (2022)

Additional music

• Detroit (2017)

Other works

• Falling Sky, ballet (2020)
• At war with ourselves, a concert piece on a poem by Nikky Finney
• Omar, an original opera on the life of Omar ibn Said co-composed by Rhiannon Giddens
• Get Out, in concert (2020)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Profile at SubitoMusic.com
• IMDB Page
• Michael Abels Website