Michael Heavner is a highly versatile freelance musician and educator with a comprehensive music education and performance background.

Michael’s academic experience includes serving as a full-time instructor at the University of Arkansas Department of Music and the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, as an artist in Residence at the University of Central Arkansas, College of Fine Arts and Communication, and as a Guest Musical Director at Hendrix College in Conway, AR.

He holds a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Graduate School and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Notably, Michael also attained a Ph.D. in Honky Tonk Piano Performance from the esteemed Jimmy Doyle’s Country Club. Actively engaged in recording arts technology, he produces custom-recorded musical orchestrations and sound designs for theatre, radio, and artists nationally and internationally.

His career has encompassed national tours, where he performed as a musical director/keyboardist in equity tours of Blues in the Night, Idols of the King, and Always Patsy Cline across the United States. Michael has garnered further experience as a musical director/pianist for numerous equity and non-equity productions nationwide.

His repertoire includes performances with recording artists such as Grammy winner Larry Gatlin, Charley Pride, Earl Thomas Conley, Lawrence Hamilton, David Ball, Dale Hawkins, Narvel Felts, Mike Huckabee, The Platters, The Coasters, and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Percy Sledge. Furthermore, Michael’s prowess as a pianist is highlighted on two live CDs — “Back By Popular Demand” and “Standing Room Only” — by The Diamonds, a renowned “doo-wop” group that has been inducted into the Doo-Wop Hall of Fame.