MICHAEL IRISH, Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan Tech University, has a broad background in Jazz Studies as an educator and performer. He holds a B.M.E. from Northern Michigan University and an M.M.E. from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point with a thesis in Jazz Studies. Prior to his appointment at Michigan Tech in 1991, Mr. Irish taught in the Wisconsin Public Schools and for 8 years was the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. He is the recipient of the Michigan Tech Distinguished Teacher Award for 2001.

As a jazz guitarist, Mr. Irish has performed with Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, Dizzy Gillespie, Byron Stripling, Bobby Shew, Rob McConnell, Don Ellis, Frank Wess, Steve Houghton, Don Shelton, Harold Jones, Lyle Mays, Frank Mantooth, Dave Samuels, Wendell Harrison, Harold McKinney, and Eddie Russ, among others. In the area of popular music, he has worked with Bob Hope, Robert Goulet, Rich Little, Carol Lawrence, Jeannie C. Riley, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bobby Vinton. In 1997 and 1998, he was a guitarist/mandolinist for the national touring companies of "Fiddler On The Roof" and "BIG".

Mr. Irish is also an active jazz adjudicator/clinician, composes and arranges for both large and small jazz ensembles, and has studied jazz arranging and composition with Dick Grove, Frank Mantooth, and Matt Harris. He is a longtime member of the International Association of Jazz Educators and in 1985 received the first National Band Association Outstanding Jazz Educator Award. In 1992, he received one of 6 National Merit Awards from the American College Theater Festival for his 25 original compositions for the blues musical, The Blue Psalms. Two of his arrangements are featured on the MTU jazz CD entitled Tech Jazz and Mr. Irish has contributed 7 of his original compositions to the Jaztec CD Watch Your Step.