Dr. Mike D'Ambrosio has been Assistant Professor of Music at Jacksonville State University in Alabama since fall 2005. His responsibilities include teaching courses related to music theory, composition, aural skills, and arranging, as well as directing the overall operation of the theory area. Previously, he taught theory and composition at Oklahoma State University, aural skills at the University of Dayton, and a variety of theory subjects at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). He received his D.M.A. and M.M. degrees in music composition from CCM where he studied with Joel Hoffman and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (now at Eastman). Originally from Long Island, New York, Mike did his undergraduate work at Lehigh University where he double-majored in music and accounting.

Mike's music has been performed by the Philadelphia Brass, Monarch Brass, Catskill Brass Quintet, Shepherd School Brass Choir (Rice University), Oklahoma State University Concert Chorale, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) Symphony Band, CCM Brass Choir, Lehigh University Wind Ensemble, and by soloists and chamber musicians throughout the United States. His Wind on the Island was named the first place winner of the University of South Carolina Choral Composition Contest and will be performed this spring by the USC Concert Choir in Columbia, South Carolina and Beijing, China. Its predecessor In You The Earth won the 2006 Arant Choral Composition Prize given by the University of Georgia and will be performed at the College Music Society's 2008 SuperRegional Conference at LSU. Mike has also received ASCAPLUS Awards for the past two years.

Recent commissions include two a capella choir pieces for Dirk Garner, Director of Choral studies at Oklahoma State University, and the Lee High School Band Commissioning Project (Lee, MA) that culminated with a three-day residency before the premiere. In 2003 Mike wrote Milligan's Wake, a wind ensemble piece dedicated to and commissioned by Terence Milligan, Director of the Symphony Band at CCM, to celebrate his 25th year of service to that institution (click here for press release of anniversary concert). The previous year, Mike was commissioned by the Society for the Preservation of Music Hall to write a fanfare to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the downtown Cincinnati landmark. The piece received a subsequent performance by the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra's brass section the following summer. In June of 2000, his Out From Under was performed by the Monarch Brass as part of the International Women's Brass Conference and was subsequently included on the group's first CD. In addition, Mike's Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano is included in Anthony Balester's "Outstanding Contemporary Saxophone Works and Recordings," accessible on the Ithaca College website.