Michael Fitzsimmons

 His most recent recordings include Skin on Skin (2002), which garnered him a Nebraska Arts Council Fellowship Award; Light in the Village (1994), Coyote Oldman records; In Medicine River (1992) with Michael Graham Allen, Coyote Oldman records; Joydance (1990); and Sunshower (1987). He has composed and performed music for Robert Bly's Tatterhood, and adaptations of Snow White and Cinderella for the Omaha Emmy Gifford Children's Theater. Fitzsimmons also accompanied storyteller Nancy Duncan's Coyote, Good Old Crunchy Stories II, and The Cat that Walked by Himself, Always/Never Coming Home directed by Bill Kirk with his original score. Michael is a leader of drum circles at Universal College of Healing Arts and other venues, an artist with Very Special Arts, cofounder of Who's Art Is It Anyway? for art museums and galleries with storyteller Rita Paskowitz. He is a percussionist with the Sacred Heart Freedom Choir under the direction of James Bogess, and the Christ the King Choir.

Michael is a solo artist with the Nebraska Arts Council's Touring Program, performing in schools, communities, and corporate settings. As a master teaching artist with University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Arts Are Basic, and a resident teaching artist with Nebraska Arts Council, Fitzsimmons provides programs for music and story as a way of learning at many regional schools. Michael is a leader of full day music workshops with G.A.T.E.(Grief and the Arts Training Experience) for therapists, school teachers, hospital teams, and individual groups. He is a skilled performer of diverse percussion instruments including drums, African instruments, Mbira (thumb piano), Plains Indian flutes, Brazilian percussion flutes, various bamboo flutes, and Bell Drum.