Michael Levy is a composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, whose musical mission is to create an entirely new musical genre, which could best be described as a 'New Ancestral Music' - dedicated to creating new music for the recreated ancient lyre, featuring an exotic palette of ancient musical modes & intonations not heard in almost 2000 years. Basing his recreated lyre playing techniques from both illustrations of ancient lyre players and the various playing techniques still practised today in Africa, he has independently produced over 30 releases since 2008.
In 2024, Michael's track ‘Ode to Ancient Rome’ was featured in a scene of the Roman Gladiator TV series, ‘Those About to Die’, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Michael has collaborated with Rufus Wainwright, who arranged one of Michael's ancient lyre-themed compositions, 'Hymn to Zeus' in two scenes of his second opera, 'Hadrian'.
Michael has collaborated with the iconic American artist Jeff Koons - his music for recreated ancient Greek kithara was the main soundscape of Koon's animatronic sculpture, 'Apollo Kithara' (2019-2022), displayed on the Greek island of Hydra in 2022 & in Frankfurt in 2023.
Taking lyre music mainstream, in 2024, Michael collaborated with Damon McMahon of Amen Dunes, who used Michael's arrangement of the 3,400 year old Hurrian Hymn as the central theme of an experiemental musical collage in the final track of Damon's album, 'Death Jokes'.
Michael's music has been featured in exhibitions at the British Museum, the Oriental Institute of Chicago, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC & as the soundscape to many ancient-history themed podcasts, TV advertisements & immersive ancient world-themed video games.