MICHAEL MARKOWSKI (b. 1986) is fully qualified to watch movies and cartoons. In 2010, he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in ‘Film Practices’ from Arizona State University. While Markowski has never formally studied music at a university, he has studied privately with his mentors Jon Gomez and Dr. Karl Schindler. However, he has continued his education by participating in a number of extracurricular programs including "The Art of Orchestration" with television and film orchestrator, Steven Scott Smalley, the National Band Association's Young Composer and Conductor Mentorship program in 2008, and recently participated in the 2014 NYU/ASCAP Foundation Film Scoring Workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker where he was named one of ASCAP's Film & TV "Composers to Watch." Mark Snow, composer of The X-Files and one of the workshop's guest mentors, says Michael's music was "extremely sophisticated" and "complimented the mood and emotion of the scene with unusual maturity and sensitivity." Even more recently, he was invited to join the long-standing and decorated BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop as a first-year composer-lyricist. In 2006, his work for concert band, Shadow Rituals, was honored with first prize in the first Frank Ticheli Composition Contest, sponsored by Manhattan Beach Music. The work is published by Manhattan Beach Music and is on several state lists. When life is not about band, Markowski enjoys writing weird songs with friends, which he pens under the pseudonym Tune & Lube. The band released their first studio-recorded EP in 2011 called The Way She Goes, which features guest vocals in the titular track by Canadian actor, John Dunsworth (best known for playing Mr. Lahey in Trailer Park Boys). Some of these early tunes inspired a short movie-musical about Late Night talk show host, Conan O'Brien. NBC found out about Conan: The Musical in 2008 and aired a short bit where Mr. O'Brien heartwarmingly mocks the project, making such wonderful jabs as "What the hell was that?" and "That is a show no one will go to see!" Joel Godard, the show's off-kilter but lovable announcer for 16 years, describes the aforementioned Tune & Lube songs as "Catchy. And writers tell me that's 1,000 times harder to accomplish than people think." He is a member of ASCAP, the Society of Composers & Lyricists, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.