Michael Kleinschmidt is the Canon for Cathedral Music of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle. Before assuming this role in March 2015, he held similar positions at Trinity Cathedral, Portland, Oregon; Trinity Church, Boston; and The Parish of All Saints, Ashmont (Boston). Michael’s primary mentor in church music was Gerre Hancock, with whom he worked as Assistant Organist of Saint Thomas Church, New York City, in the early 1990s. Michael holds degrees in organ performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Eastman School of Music. His teachers were Haskell Thomson and Russell Saunders. As a recipient of a Fulbright Grant, he studied contemporary organ literature and improvisation for a year with Peter Planyavsky in Vienna. As a concert organist, Michael has performed in forty States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. As a choral conductor, he has led Royal School of Church Music summer choir courses in several North American cities. In addition to his professional activities, Michael enjoys exploring wilderness areas of the Pacific Northwest on foot and sharing life with his spouse, Marc Aubertin.