Mike McCormick is an Oslo-based guitarist, laptop performer and composer originally from Yellowknife, Canada. Though his primary expression is through music performance, Mike’s creative output draws from a variety of disciplines, including conceptual and performance art, electroacoustic music, twentieth-century literature, and various notated and improvised music traditions.
Besides performing regularly in ad hoc improvising and chamber ensembles, his active projects include the improvising trio BRINICLE, the composers orchestra OJKOS, and his vivid depictions of human intimacy explored in the Proxemics project. In addition to composing for Proxemics, he maintains an active composing schedule with commissions from various chamber ensembles, often experimenting with the integration of improvised and strictly notated elements.
A graduate of the jazz program at the University of Toronto, Mike studied with esteemed Canadian musicians Geoff Young, Christine Duncan, Andrew Downing, Jim Lewis, and Terry Promane. He spent the final year of his degree on exchange at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland where he studied with Kari Ikonen, Teemu Viinikainen, and Jussi Kannaste.
In the spring of 2017 he completed the Nordic Masters program after studies in Oslo, Gothenburg, and Copenhagen with international luminaries such as Helge Sunde, Anders Jormin, Kasper Tranberg, Simon Toldam and Laura Toxværd. In 2019 he completed an additional Master’s degree in Music Performance Technology at the Norwegian Music Academy in Oslo after studies under internationally renowned electroacoustic composers Natasha Barrett and Eirik Arthur Blekesaune.
Mike has been fortunate enough to perform extensively in Canada, in India, and all across Europe, including performances at the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Ottawa International Jazz Festival, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. He has had the pleasure of collaborating and performing with visionary artists like Kasper Tranberg, Simon Toldam, Nordic Voices, Christine Duncan, and Greta Eacott.
Mike is also the recipient of several awards, including the Don Wright Scholarship in 2014 for accomplishment in the field of arranging and the first place scholarship in the Galaxie Rising Stars Program for emerging artists in 2013. His creative work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, The SOCAN Foundation, Norsk Jazzforum, and Fond for Utøvende Kunstnere.
