About Michael Kysar
Michael Kysar was conductor of The Boeing Employees Choir from 1982 to 2010, conducting over 500 performances around the world,
in some of the finest concert halls such as Cathédrale Sainte-Pierre in Nantes, France; the York
Guild Hall in England; and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Countries where he has presented concerts:
England, Wales, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and of course, the U.S.
For fifteen years, he performed around 150 duet recitals with partner Sherry Meinert as A Gift of Song, and taught private voice lessons
for twenty years. His students have performed on Broadway, at the Munich State Opera, The Metropolitan Opera Company, and one student
even gave voice lessons to Bill Gates.
Kysar spent nine years teaching junior and senior high school music in the Highline district near Seattle. In a junior high of 600 students,
300 of them were in his music classes, which included concert band, stage band, orchestra, and three choral groups. The Eighth Grade Chorus
had 95 singers, and almost half of them were boys.
In the 1970s, he was a pioneer in publishing and promoting vocal jazz music, and in the 1990s, was a pioneer in publishing music on the Internet.
He created the Sing for Life! festival where young people discover how music can enrich their lives over a lifetime, and how "old people"
can be wonderful performers and thoroughly enjoy life and music.
He has presented his seminar on mental discipline for performers more than 75 times around the U.S. and Canada for universities, professional
organizations, teachers, and high schools.
During nine years as a full time employee at Microsoft, he served as instructional designer, technical writer, team lead, and program manager,
including being the first technical program manager for the birth of what became MSNBC on the Internet, and then attempted to retire. He
frequently returned to Microsoft as a consultant, program manager, technical writer, or software designer and developer, and then retired again, and again.
He holds Bachelor of Arts in Music Education and Master of Education in Voice degrees from Central Washington University.
He studied voice with Lynn Dupin and Phyllis Peterson, studied conducting with Helmuth Rilling and Thomas Somerville, and studied composition with
Robert Panerio and Paul Creston.
As a baritone soloist, he has performed with the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society, the Seattle Opera Chorus, Pacific Lively Arts, A Gift of Song,
Puget Sound Concert Opera, Bellevue Opera, Fat Chance! Opera, and many churches in the Puget Sound region.
In the summer of 2011, he served as chorusmaster for the Northwest Mahler Festival under conductor
Alexander Prior, and sang the role
of the Count in a scene from "The Marriage of Figaro" with Fat Chance! Opera. Now over 70, he is still active as singer and voice teacher.
He serves as a board member, webmaster, and voice chair, for The Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside
in Bellevue, Washington, and is also president and owner of Publishing Foundations Corporation.
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