PROFILE – Michael Reason

Artistic Director

Lake Chapala Orchestra

When Michael was a 10-year-old in England, he saw for the first time a conductor standing before a stage full of musicians, waving his arms, and shaping them into an orchestra. He told his father, “That’s what I want to do.”

Today, at 69, he stands before the 65-piece Lake Chapala Orchestra, making manifest his conviction that an orchestra is a fundamental part of a region’s cultural identity. The 2026 season will feature five concerts with the full orchestra in January, March, May, October, and December, an intimate summer series of three performances in July, August, and September, and a gala fundraising concert (also supporting Foodbank Lakeside) in June.

His is a story of a full career in the music world. After determining that a conductor’s life was for him, he was told by his father that he would first have to learn an instrument. He studied piano, then violin, and gained entrance to a youth orchestra in England. He also studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and took a degree in Musical Education. After a decade in England working in professional music theater, the unforgettable sight of Sharon Jarvis playing the lead, Roxie, in Chicago sent his life off into marriage and a new country. Sharon (an actress with whom local theatergoers will be familiar) is Canadian, and it was in Canada that Michael made his very successful career as a conductor and artistic director at Prince George Symphony Orchestra, Niagara Symphony Orchestra, and for 10 years at Hamilton Orchestra. He appeared many times with other orchestras in Canada, Europe, Asia, and Mexico.

In 2007, Michael and Sharon decided on a new life direction. They moved to Nicaragua and opened a B&B, but after two years and Nicaraguan government vagaries that discouraged tourism, they decided to try Ajijic, which a guest couple had made sound very appealing. And then the local musical community got wind that a conductor and artistic director of orchestras had taken residence, and here we are today.

Michael first worked with 13 volunteer expat musicians who remember the experience fondly, but after only four concerts, Covid intervened, and during that time when an opportunity for contemplation was made available for us all, he and a dedicated group of players laid plans for The Lake Chapala Orchestra. With a board that by agreement will always be made up of musicians, with years of experience in the ways such groups struggle or succeed, the ways in which players are nurtured or not, Michael has put together a very successful orchestra where approximately 85% of the members are Mexican. Many come from Guadalajara. A member of the ensemble tells me it is the most pleasant orchestra they have ever known. His background in education is evident in his famous introductions to each piece where he entertains and informs the audience about the composer and the work. It is also evident, in listening to him talk of his Lakeside audience, that he gives careful attention to its preferences and puts pleasing it ahead of his personal musical interests where they might deviate, though largely he seems happily and naturally attuned to what our community enjoys and his artistic direction may be so successful because of this fortunate fit.

The Lakeside Orchestra pays it members, and pays its guest performers, and must pay for all the other necessities: printing, advertising, hall rental, chairs … approaching 250,000 pesos a performance. We are more than fortunate to have a generous community and a director who has taken careful note in his career of all the moving parts of successful performances.

I asked Michael what differences he had observed in the musical worlds of the UK, Canada, and Mexico and got an answer which was very pleasant to hear. In England and Canada (and those of us from the US can vouch for its inclusion), funding for the arts is the first to go if budget issues arise. Not so in Mexico, Michael says. He finds the state at all levels dedicated to the people’s access to music, especially young people. For instance, The Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra in Guadalajara sells subsidized tickets at 350 pesos, letting whole families (of possibly budding musicians and conductors) affordably experience the best.

Well, Michael, do you have any hobbies (given that your life is doing that which you love best?), I ask. Michael is quite proud to tell you that he has turned his health completely around with cross-fit and good diet, that he has more stamina today than 20 years ago. Where once he struggled to recover from the exertion of performances and even had a heart attack, he now, thankfully, looks good to go for a long time. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

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Carolyn Kingson

Carolyn Kingson was born in New Orleans and received her PhD from Tulane University. Her field of interest was the physiology of sexual behavior; she published a number of articles in scholarly journals, one garnering attention when it was cited in Playboy under the heading “Use It or Lose It.” In 1970 and ‘71, after teaching in Michigan, she and her then-husband traveled around the world, beginning in Japan and reversing the hippie trail to Europe. Later, she returned to teaching, had two daughters, dropped out and built a house in a village in New Mexico, made high-end jewelry, painted, and wrote five novels. She helped compile and contributed to Viva San Pancho, an account of life in the village where she and her second husband bought a home in 1996 and to which they retired in 2005. She has also lived in San Sebastián, and now, Chapala.

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