Composer and percussionist Michael Udow , a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, served as Composer-in-Residence with the Colorado Chamber Orchestra and was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame, receiving the Society's Lifetime Achievement in Education Award. His body of work spans five operas, film scores, orchestral and wind ensemble works, and numerous chamber music and solo compositions. Michael's distinctive compositional voice eludes categorization. His rhythmically engaging contrapuntal lines, often woven with dense timbres, blend effortlessly with memorable melodies.

Michael's performing career includes decades as Principal Percussion with The Santa Fe Opera (1968–2009) and as a full-time member of the New Orleans Philharmonic, Summit Brass, the Blackearth Percussion Group, and Tone Road Ramblers. He served on the faculty at the University of Michigan (1982–2011), where he is Emeritus Professor of Music, and continues to lead percussion and composition residencies at conservatories worldwide, including in Japan, China, and Korea.

His 400 page percussion pedagogy book, complete with video examples, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019 and has quickly become a mainstay throughout the percussion world.

Michael’s 2020 animated film, Echoes of the Past, performed live with orchestra, wind ensemble, or 6-percussion with sound playback, has received twelve laurel awards to date, including New York's Sound and Vision International Film and Technology Festival, the Hollywood Verge Film Awards, the Picasso, Einstein, Buddha Film Festival (India), and Bengal's Model N Movie International Shorts.