ABOUT

Michael L. Austin is currently Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound and Programme Leader in Music Production at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England (about 13 miles northwest of Liverpool), where he teaches courses in music and audio production, performance, and research. He also currently serves as the Executive Director of the international Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG). 

Prior to his appointment at Edge Hill, Austin served as Founding Director of the School of Music and Associate Professor of Music at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, where he established a new academic program and minor in Music Industry Studies and lead a "tune up" of the School of Music's degree programs and curricula. He also previously served as Associate Professor of Media, Journalism, and Film and founding coordinator for the Interdisciplinary Studies Program in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He received a B.M. in Music Composition from the University of Texas at San Antonio, a M.M. in Music Theory from the University of Texas at Austin, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Humanities - Aesthetic Studies (Arts and Technology) from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Austin is a research fellow of the Library of Congress' Radio Preservation Task Force and member of the Emerging Media and Entertainment Research Group (EMERG) and the Laboratoire Musique et Informatique de Marseille [MIM] (Music and Informatics Laboratory of Marseille, France). He is editor of Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play (2016, Bloomsbury) and his monograph, Audiovisual Alterity: Representing Ourselves and Others in Music Videos, is currently in press (Oxford University Press). His presentations and publications include research on  sonic culture, sound and music in emerging media (especially video games and music videos), music analysis, and encyclopedia entries on computer music, digital audio, brand image, and computer models of music (psychology). He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sound and Music in Games (University of California Press) and the online journal Evental Aesthetics. His work as a sound engineer and producer has been released on the Albany Records label. He is also a trustee and founding board member of the international Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Video Games.

Austin has also served as Director of Music Technology and Audio Recording at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, MO, where he taught courses in music technology, audio recording and engineering, music business, and graduate courses in digital media, and served as associate director of the St. Joseph Community Chorus. Austin was lecturer in digital sound design at the University of Texas at Dallas and has taught courses in music theory, music history, and commercial music at UT Austin and Collin College.

Austin has performed with various groups throughout the United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, Canada and Brazil, including the Liverpool Bach Collective, Dallas Pro Musica, UT Austin’s Early Music Ensemble, the Texas Bach Choir, the UTSA Lyric Theatre, UT Dallas’ Musica Nova Ensemble, the professional choirs at the Washington National Cathedral, and other university choirs and ensembles. As an active composer/arranger, Austin has written for chamber ensembles, choirs, soloists, film, and new media. Austin's work as a sound artist has been displayed at a number of galleries, including the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Austin has received numerous grants and fellowships, including a travel grant funded and support through FRAME (French Regional & American Museum Exchange) and funded by the Annenberg Foundation to lead composition workshops at the Université du Sud Toulon Var, Ingémédia Department, in Toulon, France, and intramural grants for research in audio technology and new media. He has also been the recipient of other named fellowships and scholarships in music theory and performance. 

Austin was born in Dumas, TX and currently resides in Liverpool.