Click play to hear 'From Him, To Me, For Him' from the CD 'Collection No. 1'

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Michael Leasure is a guitarist/composer with a massive catalog of multi-faceted original compositions numbering over 1000. His CD's feature his work on guitar synthesizer as well as jazz, classical and acoustic guitars.

Michael Leasure is a very unique, progressive and broad minded jazz artist. His music is difficult to categorize as Michael plays with ease in a broad range of styles, from straight ahead to be-bop, classical, new age, folksong, rock, reggae, hip hop, avant garde and more. His sounds range from acoustic to electronic. His music moves from relaxed and beautiful to provocative and full of energy. Michael is modern, yet carries within him the deepest respect for music history. More than 30 years of composing, recording, performing and traveling define the life of Michael Leasure. Always growing as an artist, Michael Leasure is known as an innovative stylist, a virtuoso and one of the first to create a catalog of music for guitar synthesizer.

Michael has performed with many great musical legends in concert, in festivals and in intimate settings.

Michael Leasure was born in Marietta, Ohio. Starting on piano at a very early age, Michael soon added the guitar at the age of 8. Violin, flute and many more soon followed during adolescence. With the release of his first CD, 'Collection No.1' on MTL Productions, his many music styles were characterized. Examples are traditional and modern jazz, chamber music, new age, urban progressive, folk, and his free form explorations on the guitar synthesizer. Michael’s music further evolved with his more recent, award winning CD 'Christmas of Yore - A Thousand Years of Christmas Music’.

At 19, he both attended, and was employed by, The Berklee College of Music, where he also received a degree in composition and performance graduating magna cum laude. At 21 he was offered a scholarship at Ohio University where he worked on his graduate degree in composition and electronic music and became the first and youngest jazz guitar teacher at the college. Always an original artist, Michael has been relentless in his pursuit of excellence. After a year and a half he left school to pursue a rigorous schedule of performing, beginning in the Midwest and ending in Florida, where he now resides.

In Florida he began performing beach concerts and was approached by Callico Productions for a management/publishing contract. After playing a solo concert for Dr. George Butler of Columbia Jazz, Dr. Butler began grooming Michael for a CBS recording contract. Michael's music was classed as 'chamber jazz' and featured his work on guitar synthesizer. In the five year period with CBS Michael composed 300 pieces of music.

Michael is a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music. He was one of the very first jazz musicians to treat the guitar synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. To this day all of Michael's chamber style recordings have been orchestrated on the guitar synthesizer.

Michael has spent most of his life on tour, averaging between 180 and 360 shows a year since 1980, and in the studio releasing 17 CD's on MTL Productions, as well as countless other recordings by other artists. In 1998 Michael also began touring with the cruise lines as a jazz trio artist.