Where I come from

According to my parents, I began singing long before I could talk. In fact, their favorite story was of when I was toddler. I would wake up late at night, roll over onto my hands and knees, and sing (at the top of my lungs), "Oooooooooooooooh, he floats through the air with the greatest of ease . . ." and I would rock the bed – hard! – on each of the underlined syllables. Needless to say, I wore the wheels on my crib flat . . . and wore out 6 mattresses, too! So, singing comes naturally and I've never stopped. Of course, I come by it honestly. My mother was a classically trained singer with an amazing 5-plus octave voice, so it's no wonder I picked this as a career. I did study business as a major at university, in order to placate my parents who worried that a music degree might not be sustainable. Fair enough . . . but my minor was in music; voice production & performance and theory & composition, too.

By the time I was 3, I was singing in choirs and performing. I sang everywhere and began studying classical voice, focusing on Bel Canto – "beautiful music" – when I was 12. After 15 years, I switched to studying Jazz and, for most of my performing life, I have performed light music. My special musical love is the American a cappella (unaccompanied) style of singing called Barbershop Harmony, specifically singing in barbershop quartets (just 4 singers). Since 1989, I have won five barbershop quartet championships; one at the regional level, two at the national level, and two at the international/invitational level – singing three different voice parts.

My musical honors include being named Chapter Barbershopper of the Year by my hometown chorus in 1984 and being named both District Coach of the Year (1989) and District Barbershopper of the Year (1990) by the Johnny Appleseed District (BHS), which includes the states of Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. I was also awarded Honorary Life Membership in the Irish Association of Barbershop Singers (IABS) for my role in helping to establish the IABS Harmony College in the mid-1990s, and I am also a Life Member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS).

Where I am today

I moved my educational services business to Europe, in 2000, and I moved to Israel, in 2004, where I worked with SingIsrael for 11 years to bring educational and coaching services to amateur singers and singing groups in Israel. In addition to coaching over 200 other groups in Israel, I was also the music director for the 2 professional English language theater companies, conducted a choir, was the musical leader of a chamber ensemble, sang in 2 barbershop quartets and a vocal jazz sextet, taught voice to dozens of students and, of course, acted whenever possible.

My professional name is Kelly Michaels and I do much of my writing and teaching under this name, as well as all of my acting. Most recently, I appeared in an Israeli feature film, Afterthought, with Itay Tiran (and the rest of my Chutzpah! quartet mates), which premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. And, in my final few months in Israel, I also appeared in the English On Stage production of a new, original musical called Tom's Diner, which uses hit pop songs of the early 1960s to tell the story, and for which I also wrote the title song.

Due to family medical issues, I returned to Akron in December of 2014 and, while I am retired from day-to-day work, I am available for certain short-term projects. Please Contact me for more information.

Back to Top