Composer Michele Fernández
Michele Fernández’s La Fiera Asturiana received its inaugural performance by Northshore Concert Band on December 19, 2025, at the Midwest Clinic. This fiery Spanish march is a highlight of our winter 2026 program.
Ms. Fernández says of this work:
This particular work is actually the fulfillment of a promise that I made to my father in my early 20s when I started out as a young band director in Miami. He had asked me to write a piece someday for his mother — my grandmother, who I had never met. Along with being a devoted mother to three children, she was also a flamenco dancer from Asturias, Spain. She passed away from cancer when my father was only six years old. Last summer, I simply woke up one day and decided that it was time to keep that promise to my father.
Michele Fernández is a published composer, active guest clinician, adjudicator, and performer. Her compositions have been performed at renowned music education conferences and conventions, including the Midwest Clinic, College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE), and numerous regional and state festivals. Her works are currently published through Hal Leonard, Excelcia/Kendor, Doug Beach, JW Pepper, Murphy Music Press, EJazz Lines/Walrus, Jazz Zone, and self-published through Michele Fernández Music. She is a member of Phi Beta Mu (Omega Chapter) and is an active member of the Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA), Jazz Education Network (JEN), International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC), and the Minority Band Directors National Association (MBDNA). She frequently serves as a guest clinician and conductor for all-state and regional honors groups around the country. She has presented at the Midwest Clinic (2007, 2016), Jazz Education Network conference (2022), and a variety of state conferences. She is a Conn-Selmer and Hall Leonard-sponsored clinician, as well as a freelance clinician for universities and school districts across the country.
Michele recently retired from teaching in Miami after 30 years, where her Miami Senior High School ensembles earned top honors and gained international acclaim. Her ensembles performed at the Midwest Clinic (1993, 1998), the International Association for Jazz Education conference (Boston, 1994; New York City, 1997), the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland, 1996), the Florida Music Educators Association conference (1994, 1997), and have appeared in various national publications. She and her students were the subject of a documentary on CBS Sunday Morning, a cover story in Band Director’s Guide, and she was featured as an outstanding educator in DownBeat. Before focusing on composition and education, she was an active oboist in the Miami area and performed as a member of the rhythm section for a busy Afro-Latin jazz ensemble.
We contacted Michele Fernández and asked her to share her journey in music, her favorite musical memory, and more.
Please tell us about your journey in music and life. In brief synopsis: It began with an out-of-the-blue phone call during the spring of 1989, during my senior year in college, that offered me the chance to come back to my old high school and take over teaching band after my band director had left. I was planning to go to law school because I wanted to be a trial attorney and major in music education to keep my oboe scholarship while taking some legal-centered classes on the side. I decided to try teaching for a year just to see where it went, and 30 years went by. I have zero regrets. In 2002, after losing our 3-year-old son, Sean, I decided to leave music and began teaching special education at the same high school. My daughter, Sara, was 2 at the time. Four years later, when she was 6 years old, she gave me a “lecture” about going back to music because it “made you happy.” Illumination. The next day, I accepted an offer to teach band that I had just turned down. That was in 2007. In reality, her lecture is a major reason I am a composer today. She is 25 now, majored in flute performance at the University of North Texas, was a graduate assistant at VanderCook College of Music, and has already made valuable contributions to others through music.
What have been some of your musical influences? My influences span anywhere from Debussy to Paquito D’ Rivera.
Please share your favorite musical memory. Being five months pregnant with our first child (Sean) in 1998, on stage at the Midwest Clinic with my jazz band (when it was at the old Hilton). I had written a piece for him to be our closer, which depicted the stages of a child’s life. I called it Ojitos, which means “little eyes” (because I couldn’t wait to see them). It was a special moment between all of us: the audience, my students, myself, and the little peanut who still had four months to go before meeting us. When he died a little over three years later, I discarded the score, parts, and the Midwest Clinic cassette, never wanting to see them again. I found them in a box, unexpectedly, 17 years later. I shared on Facebook the experience of hearing it after all those years, and received a call from a prolific composer friend urging me to submit it for publication. I did not want to do that at first. I finally did cave and sent it to Hal Leonard. The rest is … well, the rest.
What is on your Spotify playlist or in your music library? My favorite CDs include Billy Joel, Chicago, Yes, Rush, Chet Baker, and Michel Camilo.
Which composer/musician, past or present, would you most like to meet for a coffee and why? My son. He wrote Ojitos, not me. I had no clue what I was doing back then.
What inspires you? Seeing people fight cruelty. That inspires me.
What do you do to relax? I scroll for signs of people fighting cruelty until I fall asleep, assured that there is good in the world.
Do you have any advice for young musicians? Try to choose a career that heals in some way. Nobody escapes this life unscathed: being in a field that brings some type of healing to others heals you. Besides, waking up to a job you can’t stand for 40 years is an awful thought. As long as you can pay your bills, waking up to a job that you (at least mostly) enjoy is definitely worth never making the extra money that you’d spend on silly things, anyway.
Please share any thoughts that you may have about the Northshore Concert Band. I didn’t want your concert at the Midwest Clinic to end. You all said so much without saying a word. You supported and rallied for so many people without saying a word. And dang! You all sure did say it beautifully.
Is there anything else that you would like our audience to know about you? To everybody reading this: Thanks for reading, but you are far more fascinating than I am. Don’t ever let anyone out there cause you think otherwise.
A special thank you to Michele Fernández for speaking with us and giving permission to reproduce this material. Read more about Ms. Fernández HERE.
IN GOOD COMPANY
Sunday, February 22, 2026, 3:00 p.m.
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Evanston, Illinois
Learn more about the Northshore Concert Band at www.northshoreband.org
Follow this blog to receive more informative and entertaining interviews.