Mike Marshal

Mike Marshall (born Michael James Marshall, July 17, 1957 in New Castle, Pennsylvania is an American mandolin player and multi-instrumentalist who grew up in central Florida and now lives in Oakland, California. Marshall has been a part of New Acoustic Music since the early 1980s. He has performed and recorded with many musicians in a variety of styles, including bluegrass, classical, jazz and Brazilian music. In addition to several instruments within the mandolin family, Marshall also plays the guitar and violin.

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Marshall has recorded and toured with other contemporary acoustic musicians such as David Grisman, Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor, Stéphane Grappelli, Darol Anger, Barbara Higbie, and Jerry Douglas. His two recordings on the Sony Classical label: Uncommon Ritual with banjo innovator Béla Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer; and Short Trip Home with violinist Joshua Bell, mandolinist Sam Bush and Meyer were both on the Billboard Classical Music charts.

Marshall and his longtime partner, Darol Anger, have released 6 albums as a duo on Compass and Windham Hill Records. Together they have also recorded with their experimental bluegrass group Psychograss with guitarist David Grier, banjo player Tony Trischka and bassist Todd Phillips.

From 1984 to 1990 Mike Marshall was part of the group Montreux, named for the Montreux Jazz Festival where they played a concert which was good enough to be released from Windham Hill, Live At Montreux - Darol Anger/Barbara Higbie Quintet. The group released two studio recordings, Sign Language and Let Them Say, before breaking up. Marshall's strength in classical music led to his co-founding in 1986 of Modern Mandolin Quartet, a string quartet of mandolin family instruments. The group released four recordings for Windham Hill Records and in 1995, the Quartet made its Carnegie Hall debut.

Mike has worked with Chris Thile from the group Nickel Creek. Their CD Into the Cauldron, released in 2003 on Sugar Hill Records, was listed in the top ten of Amazon.com’s favorite recordings for 2003. The duo show their roots in Bluegrass music, but show their passion for Classical through to new acoustic music.

In addition to touring and recording regularly, Mike is also a partner in the music label, Adventure Music, which is dedicated to releasing music from Brazil as well as Mike’s own projects. His latest releases include Serenata, a duet recording of with pianist Jovino Santos Neto featuring the compositions of Hermeto Pascoal, and an album by his Brazilian group Choro Famoso. He is also the composer of the theme music "Peter Pan" for San Francisco public radio affiliate KQED's talk show, Forum with Michael Krasny.

Marshall is also a cook, and has been known to trade music lessons for cooking instruction with some of the San Francisco Bay area's finest chefs. He is also a producer, based in his Oakland Gatorland Studios.

He and his former wife, violinist Kaila Flexer, a Klezmer musician, have one daughter.

Mike and current wife Caterina Lichtenberg have released an album together on Adventure Music.

In June, 2011 Mike began teaching mandolin online at the Online Mandolin School with Mike Marshall, as part of the ArtistWorks Academy of Bluegrass