Michael Gurt is Paula Garvey Manship Distinguished Professor of Piano at Louisiana State University. He won First Prize in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in 1982, and was a prize winner in international competitions in Pretoria, South Africa, and Sydney, Australia. He has performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, the Capetown Symphony, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, South Africa. He has made solo appearances in Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) in New York, Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, City Hall in Hong Kong, the Victorian Arts Center in Melbourne, Australia, Baxter Hall in Capetown, South Africa,
and the Attaturk Cultural Center in Istanbul, Turkey He recently completed tours of Portugal and Brazil. Gurt has collaborated with
the Takacs String Quartet and the Cassatt String Quartet, and has performed at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville,
Queensland. He has served on the juries of both the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and he has recorded on the Naxos, Centaur, and Redwood labels.

He has served as Piano Mentor at the National Music Festival in Chestertown, Maryland, and was the chair of the piano department at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival from 1987 through 2007. He has served as Piano Chair of the Louisiana Music Teachers Association and has taught at two summer music seminars held at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan. Professor Gurt holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School.