Biography

Michelle Kyle (née Hunchak) began studying piano at age 4 in Yamaha classes in Ottawa. At age 11, she began accompanying singers and instrumentalists, as well as several Ukrainian dance schools and professional companies, and playing cello. She studied piano with Netta Gale and cello with Steve Smith. At 16, she moved with her family to Saskatoon, where she completed Royal Conservatory grade 10 piano as a student of Louise MacPherson, and was assistant principal cellist of the Saskatoon Symphony.

At 17, she entered Brandon University and spent two years in Brandon, studying cello with Malcolm Tait, piano with Gordon Macpherson, and voice with Sylvia Richardson. She completed her Honours Bachelor of Music with Distinction at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she studied piano with Garth Beckett, accompanying with Marjorie Beckett, and cello with Gisela Depkat. She earned many music scholarships and music competition awards, and Saskatchewan Arts Board grants.

In 1984-86, Michelle completed Licentiate and Fellowship diplomas in piano performance from Trinity College of Music, London, England, under Garth Beckett. She accompanied cellists at the Wychwood String Seminar in Toronto, and was the pianist in a trio that won first prize for chamber music in Ontario, and placed second at the National Competitive Festival of Music in Vancouver. She accompanied singers for the Kitchener Summer School for the Performing Arts and the University of Waterloo, and accompanied dancers for Bojangles and Moree ballet schools and the University of Waterloo.

In 1987-90 in Montreal, Michelle completed a Master of Music in piano performance at McGill University, as a student of Tom Plaunt. She performed challenging contemporary chamber repertoire under Bruce Mather, and at the North American Saxophone Alliance Symposium in Quebec City, was a semi-finalist in the Eckhardt-Gramatté competition, and was music director and pianist for several professional musical theatre productions.

In 1990-2011 in Toronto, Michelle accompanied singers for ProVOCE Studios, Creative Artist Productions, Opera York, The Singerstudio, the Royal Conservatory of Music and Toronto Dance Theatre, and for auditions at the University of Toronto, Humber College, Equity Showcase, and the Canadian Stage Company. She studied Italian at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura and German at the Goethe-Institut Toronto. She spent two months studying German at the University of Vienna, and audited art song master classes at the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden, Austria in 2010. In 2008-2011 she was the pianist for the Bel Canto Singers, a community choir in Scarborough. She has performed for private events as a soloist and chamber musician for over 20 years throughout Ontario.

Michelle founded and was Artistic Director of The Birthday Series at Heliconian Hall, a Toronto concert series celebrating the lives and music of composers of art songs and chamber music with programs of their works on the composer's birthday. In this series, she accompanied professional singers and instrumentalists in nine full-length chamber concerts in 2010-11. Repertoire included art songs of Schubert, Wolf, Brahms, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Fanny Hensel, Max Reger, Joseph Marx, Alban Berg, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, Schubert's op. 162 violin-piano sonata, Brahms' op. 120, no. 1 clarinet/viola-piano sonata, and Fanny Hensel's op. 11 piano trio.

In August 2011, Michelle moved to the countryside near Monkton, Ontario, where she lives with her husband, Bill, and three Siberian cats.