Hi! I'm Matous Michal and I am a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I was hired by Riccardo Muti in 2016 as a second year graduate student of Glenn Dicterow and Lisa Kim at the Manhattan School of Music. Before that I studied with Mr. Dicterow at The Juilliard School in New York. I love playing chamber music and during my time in New York I got to collaborate with great musicians as David Finckel, Joseph Kalichstein and The Juilliard String Quartet. I also had the privilege to work with the legendary violin teacher Sylvia Rosenberg. Before coming to the United States in 2010 to study at Juilliard, I grew up in Prague studying violin performance at the Prague Conservatory.

I have been teaching students in my private studio since I joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I encourage my students to become artists and widen their overall culture spectrum by going to museums and reading books. It helps to play Debussy by going to a museum and see an impressionistic painting or play Shostakovich and Prokofiev by learning about the political situation they lived through. That creates a more interesting life in music. It is important to me that my students find their own artistic voice and become better musicians. I also help them prepare for auditions by sharing my experience and refined process so they can win the jobs they want.

Outside of music I enjoy reading great literature, working out, cooking and hiking. I especially enjoy climbing the Colorado 14ers so I can check them off my list one by one.