Piano
Michael Sitton has performed widely as a solo and chamber music pianist throughout a career spent in higher education. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and literature from the University of Illinois, and studied in France under Gaby Casadesus, earning the Diplôme de concert from Paris’ Schola Cantorum, where he was a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar of the Fondation des Etats-Unis. As winner of the Leschetizky Prize, he performed at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Hall) in New York, and played at the Embassy of France in Washington as a prizewinner of the French Piano Institute; many other performances as a solo recitalist, chamber music player, and orchestral musician have marked his career. He has also been active as a composer, especially in the field of choral music. He moved into administrative roles midway in his academic career, while maintaining activity as a performer. In 2020 he retired as Dean Emeritus of The Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York. Since then he has lived in central Vermont, becoming increasingly active in the region’s musical community, joining the faculty of the Monteverdi Music School in Montpelier, and serving on the Board of the Vermont Music Teachers’ Association. His playing in a spring 2023 Vermont Virtuosi performance was praised in a Times-Argus review for its “compelling piano artistry,” with Sitton described as a “particularly fine new pianist” to the area.
