Michael Schiefel started out as a jazz singer 30 years ago. Since then he has branched out into many musical styles and has become an integral part of the European music scene as a renowned musician, composer and singer.
Schiefel works in a jazz duo with David Friedman (vibraphone), he sings Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Songbook with the Wood and Steel Trio, and is the lead vocalist of Thärichens Tentett, a 10-musician mini big band. He is also the founder of Platypus Trio with Hungarian cymbalom player Miklós Lukács and cellist Jörg Brinkmann, as well as of Michael Schiefel’s Istanbul Quartet.
In 2007, Schiefel developed Mikeloop, an iPad app for loop performances and has been touring the world with his electronic and loop based solo performance ever since. He also exhibits vocal based sound installations, some of them with artist Samson Young, which were shown, among others, at Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Art Basel HK, London Frieze Festival and the Venice Biennale.
Schiefel performed at numerous festivals worldwide, among them the North Sea Festival (Rotterdam), JZ Festival (Shanghai), EUNICS Festival (Chile), Earshot Festival (Seattle) and the Hong Kong Jazz Festival. He collaborated with many institutions like the Goethe Institute (projects in Accra, Chile, Mexico, Russia, USA, Vietnam, India and many more), the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Sinfonietta, to name a few.
Michael Schiefel and Cathy Milliken have been collaborators since 2005. They have worked together in many projects, among them in a trio with flute player Dietmar Wiesner (Ensemble Modern), for Klangspuren New Music Festival’s education program Lautstark, with Ljubljana based dance company En Knap and many more.
In 2001, Michael joined the faculty of the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Weimar as a Professor of Vocal Improvisation, thereby becoming the youngest music professor in Germany.