MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Mike Bond began his musical journey first taking piano lessons at 4 years old.  By the time he was six, he was winning high honors competitions and performing at Carnegie Hall in NYC.

Bond, a Rutgers University cum-laude graduate, and top of his class, received the prestigious Excellence in Jazz Performance Award and the Arthur G. Humphrey award for his Bachelor’s dual major in Music Education and Jazz Piano Performance in 2012.  

He has been hired by Grammy nominated artists and some of the top musicians in the world including but not limited to , Orrin Evans, Billy Kilson, Byron Landham, Conrad Herwig, Todd Bashore, Mark Gross, Bruce Williams, Josh Evans, Gene Perla, Ryan Devlin, Curtis Lundy, Sarah Hanahan, and the Captain Black Big Band.   His album, “ The Honorable Ones,”. featuring Steve Wilson, Ben Wolfe , Anwar Marshall, Josh Evans , and Gene Shinozaki debuted in Feb of 2020 .  

Bond has most recently toured the Midwest in both 2021, and 2022 with saxophonist Ryan Devlin feat. legendary artists Gene Perla, and Adam Nussbaum.

He is a core member of the AAPI Jazz Collective, taking traditional Asian songs and re-imagining them in the style of Black American folk music.  He has played many prestigious events with them, including the Metropolitan Museum’s Lunar New Year celebration and to welcome the diplomatic visit of the current President of Taiwan Lai Ching-Te to New York City.

In September 2023, Mike was hired by Elle magazine to improvise live accompaniment  for both Babyface and Offset for the magazine’s “Burn Ballad” feature.  

As a music director, Bond has played and music directed for a variety of community theater companies while in school, and shortly after graduating.  He won a statewide Perry award  for music direction in 2016.  

Bond then began music directing for professional regional theaters.  This includes music directing & accompanying Tony award winning tap dancer Savion Glover at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (2020 & 2022), and music directing, and arranging for Broadway lead, Andrew Polec’s solo cabaret at Bucks County Playhouse in 2021.    He most recently music directed alongside Broadway choreographer, and director, and performer T. Oliver Reid, in Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 at Rider University in the winter of 2023.

He is currently on staff as an accompanist and coach for Musical Theater majors at Rider University.