Michael McNeill is a pianist, improviser, and composer in Buffalo, NY.

While living in eastern Virginia, he started the quartet Allegories, with Baltimore-based musicians Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar), Dave Ballou (trumpet), and Shelly Purdy (vibraphone & percussion). Ken Weiss wrote in Cadence that “a like minded approach to creative music made it natural for the group to form,” calling the band a “boundary-pushing quartet…sounds from extended techniques and shifting colors and textures.” McNeill will release Barcode Poetry, recorded by this quartet, in October 2024.

Also in his time in Virginia, he played and recorded with drummer/composer/painter Scott Clark, appearing on the album, Dawn & Dusk (featuring vocalist Laura Ann Singh).

he is part of the chambercore quartet, The Evolution of the Arm, with Evan Courtin (violin), Megan Kyle (oboe, English horn), and Katie Weissman (cello), a band that explores music ranging from fully-composed scores to telepathic improvisation.

Other recording projects of note include Refractions (compositions of Thelonious Monk, with drummer John Bacon and bassist Danny Ziemann), Wooden Cities’ WORK (as piano soloist in Julius Eastman’s “Stay On It”), and two trio albums (Flight, Passageways) with bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Phil Haynes.