Home » Member Page
Mike Bond
About Me
Mike Bond is a jazz pianist,
music director, arranger, composer, educator
and musical theater coach.
As a pianist, Bond boasts a c.v. that includes
shows with the Grammy nominated Captain
Black Big Band, magisterial tap dancer
Savion Glover, Broadway lead Andrew
Polec, saxophone powerhouses Bruce
Williams, Mark Gross, Todd Bashore, Sarah
Hanahan, Jerry Weldon, Ryan Devlin, and
Erena Terakubo, notable trumpeters Josh
Evans, and Duane Eubanks, legendary
bassist Curtis Lundy and famed drummers
Byron Landham and Billy Kilson to name a
few.
In 2023, Elle Magazine asked him to
improvise in real time with minimal edits
with multi platinum award winning celebrity
artists Offset, and Babyface for their “Burn
Ballad” series.
In the summer of 2024, he became a new
member of the Recording Academy.
Bond has performed as both a sideman and
leader , many times at world famous clubs,
Smalls and Mezzrow, Chris' Jazz Cafe, the
Django, Merriman's Playhouse, Rudy's Jazz
Room, the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando, the
Exit Zero Jazz Festival, Central Jersey Jazz
Festival, the Canadian Music Festival in
Toronto, and the New York City Winter Jazz
Festival etc.
As a conductor and music director, he got
his start in the community theater world
earning him a state wide NJACT Perry
Award in Outstanding Musical Direction.
Since then he has built a reputation as a
music director, and has worked with
Broadway artists and residents at the New
Jersey Performing Arts Center, Bucks
County Playhouse, Two River Theater, and
Rider University.
Ancillary to his activity in the musical
theater world, in which he became involved
while at Rutgers, Bond currently works
several days a week playing for singers who
are preparing themselves for Broadway and
regional level work, providing top notch
vocal coaching and guidance. “I talk about
the character, the phrasing, making organic
choices, bridging the gap between the
composition of the music and what it tells
us about the acting, and I reinforce what
their teachers have taught them technique-
wise,” Bond says.
“I think my early tendency — and it may be
true for a lot of pianists — sometimes is to
show your chops, especially when you’re
being recorded. I see the same in the
musical theater world in which singers want
to belt their loudest and highest notes to
impress casting directors and agents. The
beautiful part about musical theater and
Black american folk music is that they are
forever connected, with the latter being the
literal foundation of the former. It is
recognizing that for both, there is a story of
raw humanity to be told made up of the
molecules of complex emotions wrapped up
and digestible in the form of melody and
chords. My life's goal is to tell a good story,
even if its a song that everybody knows,
with my own original voice. I want to reflect
my own humanity and it is my life's passion
to encourage others to do the same with
their voices and their emotions.” - Ted
Panken (edited)
