Mike Kurilko, Director of Music, Trenton HS and TPS 5th Grade Bands
Mr. Mike Kurilko has taught in Trenton Public Schools since 1987. At Trenton High School, he is the director of the concert band, jazz band, marching band, chorus, instructs three guitar classes, and directs the spring musical, He also is the 5th grade beginning band director at Hedke and Anderson Elementary Schools with music education degrees from West Virginia University and Wayne State University.
Mr. Kurilko is a founder and past president of the Downriver Music Guild which is a professional collaborative collective of high school and middle school instrumental music teachers in thirteen school districts in the Downriver Detroit region that sponsors the DMG All Star Bands event and the DMG Jazz Clinic. He also is an adjudicator for the Scholastic Marching Bands organization (SMB) throughout Michigan and is an active member of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association (MSBOA) and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME).
As a a professional musician on trumpet and guitar, he performs with the Monroe Big Band and the Karl Steinman Pure Blues and Jazz sextet (PB+J). He also frequently performs with the Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra and Seaway Chorale Orchestra.
He performs on trumpet, guitars, banjo, ukulele, and mandolin with many theatrical pit ensembles including the Southgate Community Players, Monroe Community Players, DYPAC, Penny Seats Theatre Company in Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and for many high school productions in southeast Michigan. Mr. Kurilko has been director, music director, or pit musician for more than 50 productions throughout Michigan.
Nationally, he has toured as a guitarist and on blues harmonica with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Bo Diddley. He also functions as organist and music director for Christ the King Episcopal Church in Taylor, Michigan.
Mr. Kurilko is a 2-time Grammy Award nominee for National Music Educator of the Year. In 2018, he was named one of 25 national semifinalists for the Grammy Foundation Music Educator Award by the Recording Academy and Recording Foundation. In 2017, he was named a national quarter finalist for the same honor. Recently, he was named a 2019 VIP Music Educator by the Conn-Selmer Division of Education. The Trenton Civic Commission named him the City of Trenton's 2015 Outstanding Man of the Year.
Outside of of music, Mr Kurilko works as an events staff usher at Comerica Park for the Detroit Tigers. He and his wife, Mary, are proud of their four children - Michael, Brian, Katie, and Julie - all graduates of Trenton HS, each of whom have attended the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor or Michigan State University on the Western Golf Association Charles "Chick" Evans Caddie Scholarship.
Email: kurilkom [at] trentonschools [dot] com