Dr. Michael Carney, Director of Percussion Studies at California State University, Long Beach, is a nationally and internationally recognized performer, composer, teacher, and scholar who has performed, taught, and conducted musical and cultural research throughout the United States and abroad. Carney, originally from Rochester, New York, holds degrees in Percussion Performance from East Carolina University, Eastman School of Music, and North Texas State University, and has also studied at the International Center for African Music and Dance in Legon, Ghana, Oficina de Investigaçaõ Musical in Salvador, Brazil, and Rio Gruppo Percussaõ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Michael, a life-long performer and student of percussion, has traveled the world performing, teaching, and studying a large variety of musical instruments and styles. His broad range of knowledge and performance expertise ranges from classical to jazz, and includes musical instruments and styles from West Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil. His musical journeys have taken him to Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, and multiple times to Trinidad (West Indies), Ghana (West Africa), the Philippines, Thailand, and Brazil. In the summer of 2005, Michael completed his first jazz concert tour of Brazil, performing vibraphone and steel pan in concerts at the Ibitipoca Jazz Festival and in Rio de Janeiro with the Michael Carney-Guilherme Gonçalves Group. This concert tour gained honors from the Jazz Society of Rio de Janeiro when his Mistura Fina Concert in Rio was named as the #2 International Jazz Concert of the Year (Wayne Shorter was #1) and Carney was named as the #3 International Jazz Musician of the Year (tied with Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove). His Brazilian based group also features saxophonist Idriss Boudrioua, who was named as 2005 Jazz Musician of the Year in Rio de Janeiro. As a steel pan performer, he has had the honor of performing with some of the greatest steel pan players in the world such as Andy Narell, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ray Holman, and Liam Teague. Michael also performed on steel pan in Trinidad at the Panorama National Steelband Competition with Phase II Pan Groove and Potential Symphony in 1989 and with the Hummingbirds in 1993.

Michael has given numerous concerts and workshops at colleges, universities, public schools, and private venues throughout the United States. As a drummer and vibraphonist, Carney has performed with such jazz notables as Al Vizzutti, Pepper Adams, Bill Watrous, Eddie Daniels, John Pattitucci, Ernie Andrews, and Grammy Award Winner Bobby McFerrin. As a classical percussionist, he has performed recitals, concerts, and given workshops in classical percussion music and has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Carney has had his compositions performed and has been featured as a steel pan soloist with several symphony orchestras including: Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tulsa Philharmonic, Modesto Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Wichita Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Michael is currently the leader of Pandemonium Steel Drum Band and Michael Carney World Jazz Experience.

As Director of Percussion Studies, Dr. Carney is responsible for overseeing the entire percussion program, coordinating seven percussion faculty members and all percussion performances. He teaches private instruction, directs the World Percussion Group, Steel Drum Orchestra, co-directs the Drums and Drummers Project, and teaches classes in World Music. He is also the founder and director of the World Percussion Project, a program that takes American professionals, students, and teachers abroad for intensive study of music and culture. The project has taken participants to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and Ghana, West Africa.