Michael C. Haigler (AAGO) is a New York City-based organist, composer, pianist, and conductor of choral, orchestral, operatic, theatrical, and sacred music. He holds a magna cum laude performance degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with pianists Barry Snyder and Anton Nel, and conductors David Effron and Donald Hunsberger. He is also an alumnus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the International Fine Arts Institute in Moscow, Russia. Since 2005 he has served as Conductor and Music Director at Christ Church Oyster Bay, the church Theodore Roosevelt attended during his presidency. There he founded the Christ Church Festival Orchestra, with which he has conducted Requiems and Masses by Mozart, Fauré, Brahms, Haydn, and Rutter, and symphonies such as Mendelssohn’s Italian, Beethoven’s Ninth, and Mahler’s Resurrection (complete). Mr. Haigler also serves as Music Director of the Long Island Choral Society, Chorus Master and principal guest conductor of the Bronx Opera Company, and conductor for the operas at the Winter Harbor Music Festival in Maine. Most recently, he was appointed the conductor of The Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island. Previous church positions include Organist/Choirmaster at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Historic Richmond Town (Staten Island) and the Church of the Ascension (Cartersville, GA), and guest organist positions at St. Augustine in High Gate (London, England), and Holy Trinity Parish (Atlanta, GA). Recent guest conductor appearances include the National Chorale (at Lincoln Center), the Chorale at the Midland Center for the Arts (MI), the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble Orchestra (NYC), the Westchester Chorale (NY), the Downeast Chamber Orchestra (Maine), the Seniors Orchestral Society of New York (NYC), the University of Tennessee Opera Theater (Knoxville), the Sarasota Pops Orchestra (FL), and the Larchmont Symphonia Orchestra (NY). In 2001 he was a North American finalist in Lorin Maazel’s International Conducting Competition, and has also won many awards as a pianist, including the Atlanta Steinway Society competition. In 2015 he became an Associate of the American Guild of Organists (AAGO), scoring the highest score in the nation on the written exam. Mr. Haigler was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and lives in Manhattan with his wife, pianist Arielle Levioff, and their young son, Noah.