About
Michael D’Agostino began playing drums at age 7 after walking by a garage band playing in Uniondale, Long Island, New York. He started sitting in with local bands on Long Island by age 11 including the regionally known group “Cathedral”. By age 12 he was teaching drums in his hometown. Michael earned eleven drumming medals between age 9 and 17 competing in the annual juried music competition for NYSSMA (New York School Solo Music Association). For four consecutive years Michael was also chosen to perform with the All State Orchestra at their yearly music performance featuring the best musicians from New York State.
In high school he continued to perform in jazz trios, rock groups and pit orchestras and by age 17 was performing as a percussionist in Long Island’s “Opera on the Sound” Company . As a teenager, he studied drumset, mallets, and tympani for seven years with session drummer/percussionist and Les Brown alumni Jack Snyder. He was a percussion major at the State University of Fredonia, New York and The Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York, where he studied marimba, tympani, and drumset, piano, theory and composition. At 17 he toured the Northeast with the Crane School of Music Orchestra. and was a percussionist in the Olympic Orchestra at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid New York in 1980.
John Coltrane, Shakti, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Weather Report, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Stravinsky and Ravel are part of an endless list of bands/composers which have been an inspiration for Michael. Drummers such as Steve Gadd, Jack DeJohnette, Tony Williams, Jim Keltner, Alan White, Zakir Hussein, Stewart Copeland, Brice Wouassy from Salif Kieta’s band and John Bonham all had an influence on him. Michael has extensive experience with analog synthesis, sampling and MIDI. He was on the forefront of the electronic drum invasion in the mid 1980’s and his drum sounds can be heard on recordings of Yoko Ono, and reggae group Third World. He also programmed drum sounds for Herbie Hancock’s famed “Rock It” tour in 1983.
He also performed throughout the Northeast with rock trio “Desperate Measures,” which included Curt Golden on guitar and Victor McSurely on Chapman stick, both alumni of Robert Fripp’s Guitar Craft and members of the League of Crafty Guitarists. Michael also gigged with the Trey Gunn Group including Tony Geballe on guitar. He has also performed with Rumi translator Coleman Barks.Whether performing in Central Park with bassist Mark White from the Spin Doctors to composing for fashion shows at “The World”, Michael’s fourteen-year residence in New York City was a time to soak up many cultural and musical influences. This in turn has shaped his unique drumming style, a hybrid of rock, jazz, and world music in which he seamlessly creates an innovative rhythmic tapestry.
Michael has studied with Jamey Haddad, Janice Pendarvis, Gary Chaffee, Jim Petercsak, Leigh Howard Stevens and Mike Longo. He taught the Electronic drum workshop at the Drummer’s Collective in New York City for three years and also taught electronic and acoustic Drums at the Sam Ash Music Institute. Michael’s music can also be heard on network and cable television. Recently, his music aired on the Lifetime and Lifetime Women’s Channel as well as TNN Superstation. He has composed for 20th Century Fox’s Music Library which included music aired for the “X-Files”.
Michael is a current BMI songwriter and is endorsed by Sabian Cymbals, Vic Firth Drumsticks, Presonus Electronics, Alternate Mode(Drumkat), Grip Peddler and Fahringer Slapaphone.
