Choral Director Michael Carney has been a passionate and dedicated performer, director, and music educator for more than 25 years. He has degrees in vocal music education from Baldwin Wallace University, where he studied with Stuart Raleigh and Charlie Smith among others, and in choral conducting from Kent State University, where he studied with C. M. Shearer. He spent the first part of his career developing award-winning high school choral programs, and now directs the student choral ensembles of Lorain County Community College. Since 2016, Michael has served as Music Director for Good Company, A Vocal Ensemble – a select community chorus based on Cleveland’s west side – and founded that group’s Contemporary Composers Series, bringing prominent choral composers to Cleveland for mini-residencies with Good Company and providing meaningful outreach for local music students. Michael is also the Director of Music for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland, where he directs four ensembles and performs regularly as a vocalist and pianist/organist for services and other special events. Michael lives in Lakewood with his wife Lucy, and they enjoy traveling, making music together, and spending time with their two adult children.  

Andrew started the Cinematic Symphony orchestra with in December 2023, and has since served as the founding Music Director, as well as the CEO of the organization.

A lifelong musician, Andrew owes his entire professional career to film and video game music, as it was the iconic soundtrack to Titanic and other great soundtracks that inspired him to start learning piano, which eventually led to dreams of becoming a film composer. Before long, Andrew was writing deeply dramatic compositions that were clearly influenced by the memorable melodies, lush orchestration, and intense emotional imagery of film music and video game music.

Since then, Andrew has been privileged to serve as a Professor of Music at Kent State University, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy in Music Theory and Composition in 2019.

Andrew is now beyond thrilled to be bringing his passion and expertise to the Cinematic Symphony Orchestra, in turn fulfilling a longtime childhood dream to help celebrate and advance this incredibly underappreciated artform.

As the CSO Music Director, Andrew has created a host of exclusive arrangements for the Cinematic Symphony Orchestra, including the “Avengers, Assemble!”  suite from Avengers: Endgame and the 20-minute Catch You On the Flip Side suite from Apollo 13.