Michael J McEvoy and LCCM join forces to present 'A Rocky Road to Success: How to sustain a lifelong career in Music' via Zoom on Tuesday 1st December.

As one of the UK's most renowned composers for TV and Media, one of the most cut-throad yet rewarding areas of the music business, Michael J McEvoy knows a thing or two about tackling adversity and digging deep to build a long and fruitful career. In his own words: 'as musicians we all have a yearning to express ourselves, to create music that is recognised, and to connect with our listeners. More often than not this yearning comes from a mysterious place deep within each of us. However our desire to live a creative life may lead us into a place of instability, and for many of us this can be dangerous.'

2020 has shown that no-one is above adversity, with the Coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on the industry and life as we know it. 'The financial insecurity we open ourselves up to being freelance musicians adds another layer of anxiety' says Mike. 'This cocktail can lead to times of personal struggle that include mental illness, drug addiction and life style related health problems.' Mike will speak about these issues from his own personal experience dealing with mental Illness and addiction in his early 20s, and share about how he overcame these obstacles in his life to go on to build a successful career as a musician and composer working at the highest level.

LCCM is committed to supporting our students through the challenges we face today, and guest seminars like this are a fantastic opportunity to absorb stories, ask questions, and gain valuable insights. We can't wait to welcome Mike for what is a highly topical seminar.

About Michael J McEvoy

Michael is an award-winning composer with many film, television and pop music credits including Richard Loncraine’s feature Finding Your Feet and Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles starring Zac Efron and Clare Danes. He has collaborated with Paul Oakenfold on the films Nothing Like the Holidays, Vexille and The Heavy and new Showtime documentary, Citizen Bio. His work also features in Wild Card, Wild Target, plus TV dramas The Wire, Young Dracula and Dark Angel.

Michael work in documentary includes the landmark series for NatGeo, Alien Deep, Einstein’s Big Idea (PBS/Nova), Battle of the Hood and Bismarck. In 2018 he scored the Peabody Award-winning BBC/PBS documentary, The Jazz Ambassadors. He has three regional Emmy nominations, winning Best Instrumental Music for PBS’s Tennessee Yearbook.

He is a multi-instrumentalist and gained a Masters from the Royal College of Music where he was the PRS Sir Arthur Bliss Scholar and awarded the Joseph Horovitz Prize.

His first break in came aged 21 when he co-wrote and arranged Four Thousand Weeks’ Holiday with Ian Dury, followed by session work with Scritti Politti, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Soul II Soul, Mark Morrison, Sting, Bee Gees, Melissa Etheridge and many others. He went on to tour and work as a Musical Director for Soul II Soul, and Steve Winwood, touring in the reformed Traffic in 1994 and playing at Woodstock II. Michael has written and produced three jazz albums and was nominated in 2019 for the Ivor Novello Composer Awards.