Michael Aarons

Michael Aarons is an American guitarist, music coordinator, and composer based in New York City. He is the founder and owner of M² Music, a music-coordination and contracting firm that provides orchestral contracting, staffing, and payroll administration for Broadway productions, touring companies, recordings, and live events.

Aarons began his theatre career as a Broadway pit guitarist, making his Broadway debut in 2004 and holding guitar chairs on productions including Green Day's American Idiot, Memphis, and Kinky Boots. In the mid-2010s he became the full-time contracting associate of the veteran Broadway music coordinator Michael Keller and moved into music coordination himself. His Broadway music-coordination credits include Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Frozen, and Sunset Boulevard, and he has coordinated more than twenty North American tours.

Productions on which he has served as music coordinator have won the Tony Award for Best Musical, including Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, and Schmigadoon!. He has also composed music for television, including the theme song for the Style Network series How Do I Look? In 2026 he was honored at Broadway Salutes, the industry's annual recognition of veteran Broadway workers, for 25 years of Broadway service.

Early life and education Aarons was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. In 1994 he moved to New York City to attend the Manhattan School of Music, earning a Bachelor of Music degree in 1998. After graduating he worked in New York as a jazz and session guitarist before entering the Broadway pits.

Career Guitarist Aarons has performed as a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in Broadway pit orchestras and on recording sessions. He made his Broadway debut in 2004 playing guitar in Laugh Whore, the solo show by Mario Cantone, and over the following decade held guitar chairs on shows including High Fidelity (2006), Grease (2007), Memphis (2009), Green Day's American Idiot (2010, as Guitar 1), Evita (2012), Kinky Boots (2013), and Frozen (2018).

Outside of Broadway, Aarons has performed live with artists including Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Luther Vandross, Michael McDonald, James Ingram, Liza Minnelli, and Elton John.

In jazz, Aarons released the quartet album Not By Coincidence in 2002, recorded with pianist Sebastian Weiss, bassist Ranaan Meyer, and drummer Dan Weiss; reviewing it for All About Jazz, David R. Adler wrote that the group "burn confidently through the up-tempo numbers" and credited Aarons with "a knack for quartal harmony and angular, intervallic improvisation." He has also recorded as a sideman with Michael Olatuja on Lagos Pepper Soup (2020) and with Russ Anixter's Hippie Big Band on What Is? (2025).

Music coordination A Broadway music coordinator, also billed as musical coordinator or orchestra contractor, is responsible for hiring and staffing a production's orchestra, engaging substitutes, and administering the musicians' contracts and payroll. On Broadway he took over as replacement music coordinator on Aladdin in 2014 and held associate credits on Honeymoon in Vegas and Amazing Grace (both 2015) before assuming full music-coordinator duties on productions including Hamilton, School of Rock, and The Color Purple in 2015. and returned to the Public as music coordinator for Hamlet in 2017 and Miss You Like Hell in 2018. He was music coordinator for the 2022 Off-Broadway transfer of Kinky Boots at Stage 42, a show whose Broadway production he had played as a guitarist nine years earlier. and the 2026 world premiere of Jennifer Nettles' musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo.

His pre-Broadway and developmental work includes the 2023 world-premiere Chicago tryout of Boop! The Musical at the CIBC Theatre, which transferred to Broadway in 2025.

Touring, concert and event work Beyond Broadway houses, Aarons has coordinated more than twenty North American touring and sit-down productions. He has coordinated all four Hamilton North American companies, including the Chicago sit-down production that began performances in September 2016 at what was then the PrivateBank Theatre, since renamed the CIBC Theatre, and ran until January 2020.

In 2022 he coordinated the thirty-piece orchestra assembled to re-record the South Park theme for the series' twenty-fifth season.

Composer and television work Aarons founded his production company, Hybrid Music Productions, in 2004, initially producing mobile ringtone content before expanding into original music for television and commercial media.

Aarons has composed music for the children's television series Sesame Street through Hybrid Music Productions.

Musician The following Broadway performer credits are documented by the Internet Broadway Database.