Mike Bond

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)

Awards

Excellence in Jazz Award (Rutgers University)

Arthur G. Humphrey Award for Music Education

NJ Perry Award for Outstanding Musical Direction in a Musical