Michael Vinten

Michael Vinten studied Music History and Composition at Victoria University, Wellington, and then completed a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting at Cincinnati University, Ohio, USA. He has conducted many New Zealand orchestras, both professional and amateur, including Orchestra Wellington, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and the Southern Sinfonia. Michael also works extensively with youth orchestras, having conducted the New Zealand Youth Orchestra, the Wellington Youth Orchestra, and the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta. From 1985 until 1989 he was Music Director of the Schola Musica, the training orchestra for the NZSO. He has also worked extensively as a conductor of opera.

In 2020 Michael received a Lilburn Trust Fellowship to edit and publish a collection of pre-1950 New Zealand Art Songs that has run to three volumes. He has delivered talks on the collection at the National Library, to the 2021 NEWSATZ conference, and at Otago University. A concert of selections from the collection was toured to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland by New Zealand Opera in 2022.