Michael Walker

Dr. Michael Walker inspires students and audiences alike with his multimedia, cross-cultural collaborations and imaginative recontextualization of the concert experience. As Associate Professor of Horn at the University of New Mexico, and a founding member of the Amity Trio, he leverages skills in entrepreneurship, musicianship and pedagogy to champion musical experiences outside the traditional Western conservatory canon.

Dr. Walker believes in creating and curating concert and listening opportunities through commissions and partnerships with composers, musicians and artists. Amity Trio recorded its debut album, Between Us Now in 2022, featuring commissioned music by composers who identify as women. A second series of albums, Border Crossings, featuring music by Mexican and New Mexican composers, is in progress. Amity Trio also has partnered with Mexican composer Nur Slim twice for bilingual children’s opera productions produced both onstage and virtually, Lucrecia y el canto de los Dudasaurios (2022) and the upcoming Oliverso (2024). Dr. Walker has commissioned over fifteen additional pieces for horn and natural horn, including chamber and solo pieces by Teresa Carreño, Alice Jones, Francisco Cortés-Álvarez, Tonia Ko, Lauren Bernofsky, Ryan Chase, and Dana Wilson.

Dr. Walker is also responsible for much of the entrepreneurial and organizational work that empowers his projects with Amity Trio and other musical collaborators. Over the last three years, he was awarded ten separate awards to achieve recording, performance, and commission-related goals. In 2021, Dr. Walker was appointed as Associate Chair of the UNM Music Department, where he continues to use his business acumen and leadership skill to promote the growth and wellbeing of UNM Music. His students broaden their musical training through building leadership skills and experimenting with historically informed performance via his Seraphinoff replica natural horns from the early 19th century.

Dr. Walker also contributes to the local music scene as a performer, appearing regularly with the New Mexico Winds, Enchantment Brass, Opera Southwest, and Santa Fe Pro Music. He served as Second Horn of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic for three years, and has performed with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Performance Santa Fe, Utah Festival Opera, and others. If he is not holding a horn you can find him camping and fly fishing the idyllic southwest with his wife and daughter.