Michele Waits
Violin Soloist
Biography 10/6/2001
Michele Waits, a native of Jackson, Michigan, Michele began her violin study with Beatrice Baker Thorpe at the age of three. After seven years of Suzuki instruction with Mrs. Thorpe, she began her violin studies with Dr. Philip Mason. Michele subsequently attended and graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1987 as the Michael Dendrinos violin scholarship recipient. Since then, Michele has held various leadership roles in orchestras in Michigan, Chicago, Japan and Switzerland.
Michele currently lives in New York City. She works in marketing as Senior Product Manager on the Gerber baby food business for Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer, Novartis. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Japanese and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Biography 2/4/1995
Photo 1995
Michele began studying the violin with Beatrice Baker Thorpe at the age of three. At age nine she performed with the Albion College Orchestra and subsequently began violin lessons with Dr. Phil Mason the following year.
Michele's first experience playing with the Jackson Symphony occurred at age 10. She is currently in her fifth season as a member of the JSO.
Michele won the Zerounian String Competition at Michigan State University in 1983 and the Michigan Youth Arts Festival Concerto Competition at Western Michigan University in 1985. She was associate concertmaster for the World Youth Symphony at Interlochen in 1985 and concertmaster of the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1987. As a senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1987, Michele competed as a finalist in the Seventeen Magazine/General Motors National Concerto Competition at Bloomington, Indiana. She was also the first violinist of a string quartet which won recognition by Downbeat Magazine as the "best high school string quartet in the country." A taped performance of her playing was broadcast over radio station WQRX in New York that same year.
Michele graduated from the University of Michigan in 1991 with a double degree in Economics and Japanese. During her undergraduate college years, she played in the Greater Lansing Symphony, the Flint and Saginaw Symphonies, the Michigan Sinfonietta, and the New Arts Ensemble.
Following Graduation from UofM, she worked for three years at Matsumoto Dental College in Nagano Prefecture, Japan where she was a soloist with and concertmaster of both the Matsumoto Philharmonic and the Matsumoto Chamber Orchestra.
Michele is currently a first year graduate student at the University of Michigan Business School.