Michael Krause

Michael Krause started out in Cleveland with a brief stint as a tech entrepreneur, building an Internet service provider at the age of 14 and exiting with a sale of the business 5 years later. In his collegiate years, he decided to focus his efforts on developing his first love, piano. Hanging around the Cleveland Institute of Music, he studied piano briefly with Sergei Babayan. He eventually ended up as a music student at Yale University, while commuting to New York to study piano with Seymour Bernstein. Moving to San Diego after this period of musical obsession, he built a career in investment management, founding Counterpoint Funds.

Over the years, his focus on music persisted, and he has enjoyed performing both solo and chamber music repertoire with local musical friends. In 2022, as a semifinalist in the San Diego International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, he performed works of Chopin and Rachmaninoff. As well, he participated in PianoTexas for the first time in 2023. Michael currently lives in San Diego with his family of musicians–his wife Ines (pianist), daughter Natalie (cello) and son Glenn (violin). When he is not nerding out about the underappreciated vocal music of baroque and early classical era, he is toiling to improve his golf swing after recently rediscovering his enthusiasm for the game.