Michael Levy is a prolific composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, whose musical mission is to create an entirely new musical genre, which could best be described as a ‘New Ancestral Music’– dedicated to reintroducing the recreated lyres, ancient musical modes and intonations, back into the modern musical world.
Michael’s musical vision was influenced in part, from the similar ‘New Ancestral Music’ of both the composers Luis Paniagua of Spain and Petros Tabouris of Greece, in addition to the work in just intonation and ancient Greek microtonal scales, by the late American microtonal composer, Harry Partch.
Since 2006, Michael has focused his unique skills, at both intensively researching & recreating the ancient playing-techniques of the lyres of antiquity. Basing these techniques from both illustrations of ancient lyre players and the various playing-techniques still practiced today in Africa, he has independently produced 30 releases since 2008. The story of his music recently featured in international news releases in The Hindu and The Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)
Michael’s historic lyre music has been featured in support of exhibitions at the British Museum, The Oriental Institute of Chicago, The Royal Ontario Museum and currently features as the permanent soundscapes of the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
Michael has received airplay on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Wales, with his music featured on television productions on ITV, BBC Four and internationally, on the Greek TV channel EPT3.
His bespoke, ancient-themed compositions have featured in theatre productions, Riccardo Buscarini’s ballet production, “No Lander”, independently produced feature films, ancient-themed podcasts, audio books, educational and academic publications, DVD’s and CD’s, as well as in ancient-themed, cult PC games!
As an internationally acclaimed early music artist, Michael has performed live, at the Stockholm Early Music Festival; the biggest early music festival in the Nordic countries and was recently invited to perform his lyres at the University of Oxford for an event featured as part of the European Festival of Latin and Greek.
