Michael Oravitz received his Bachelor of Science in Music at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he studied composition with Dr. Anthony Iannacone and Schenkerian analysis with Dr. Sylvan Kalib. He received his M.M. and Ph. D. in Music Theory at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he was mentored on his dissertation research under Drs. Marianne Kielian-Gilbert (advisor), Robert Hatten and Gretchen Horlacher. His dissertation is devoted to issues of meter, phrasing and form in the music of Debussy.

His areas of interest include the music of Claude Debussy, rhythm & meter studies, musical form, music theory pedagogy and aural skills strategies. He has presented internationally and regionally on the music of Debussy—most recently at the 2008 American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory Joint Conference in Nashville, the 2007 European Music Analysis in Freiburg and the 2006 Music Theory Midwest Conference, hosted by the Ball State School of Music.

Michael is also the Aural Skills Area Coordinator for the School of Music and designer of its curriculum. He has presented on facets of that curriculum design at the 2008 Music Theory Midwest Conference, hosted by Bowling Green University. During the 2006-07 academic year, he was awarded one of Ball State’s campus-wide, student-nominated and faculty-refereed Excellence in Teaching Awards. This resulted in funding that enabled him to teach a seminar of his own design on the relationship between performance, interpretation and music analysis during the Spring of 2007.