In Remembrance: Michael Kenady
In Remembrance: Michael Kenady, Double Bass
September, 2024
Written by June Scott. Edited by John Scott and Sally Parsonson.

Until his passing in June 2024, Michael Kenady held the distinction of being the longest-serving current musician in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He played the double bass with the ASO for 59 years with all five Music Directors.
Michael’s Background
Michael, who grew up in Atlanta, said that he was the only one in his family “blessed with musical talent.” His father was a minister, his mother was a housewife, and his two elder brothers “couldn’t care less about music.” Michael was introduced to musical instruments in his public school in the second grade. He liked the sound of the trombone, so he, and two of his “best buddies” took weekend trombone lessons from his band teacher.
Connecting with the ASO
Michael had not heard classical music until his public school class was taken to hear the ASO at a Young People’s Concert. Musicians of the ASO also started a program in which they taught interested students to play a string instrument. The bass caught Michael’s eye since it is so big, although he noted that, “you can’t own a sports car if you play this instrument.” Since he had learned to read the bass clef to play trombone, he chose to learn to play the bass. When asked if he is ever sorry that he didn’t pick a different string instrument, Michael replied, “Have you ever seen all the notes the violins have to play?”

Michael as a high school student. Michael held The Jane
Little Endowed Chair.
When his first teacher, Dan Swain, left the ASO to work on a master’s degree, Jane Little took over as Michael’s teacher. Jane came in on Saturday mornings to teach Michael and made sure he understood that she expected hard work from him in return. When he graduated from high school in May of 1965, one of the ASO bass players retired, so Jane set up an audition for Michael with Henry Sopkin, the first conductor of the ASO. Michael was hired immediately and joined the Orchestra in October of 1965.
Early years with the ASO
In the early ASO days, before the Woodruff Arts Center was built, Michael remembers that they rehearsed in several different locations and none of them was a concert hall. They rehearsed at what is now a fire station at Peachtree and 10th Street, the Center for Puppetry Arts, the Egyptian Ballroom of the Fox Theater, and the Braves’ dressing room in the Fulton County Stadium. Concerts took place at an old auditorium with three or four thousand seats.
In spite of all the difficulties, Michael asserted that “artists who perform for a live audience have the best job in the world.”
Playing with all five of the ASO’s Music Directors
Michael said that each Music Director brought something new and important to improve the Orchestra. He said, “Shaw was the best choral conductor ever.” On a road trip once, Michael remembered that Shaw spent two nights with a local chorus, converting them into a marvelous, professional-sounding group.
Michael said, “Levi brought discipline, intonation, and dynamics to the ASO, and we needed all of these qualities.” Spano had a “let’s go” attitude and hired wonderful new players for the Orchestra. Michael was also impressed by Spano’s championing of new composers and contemporary music. Stutzmann has been “working to make the ASO’s music flow better and improving the sound of the Orchestra.”
Outside the ASO
In the summers of 1995-2006 Michael joined the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield “living history” performances re-enacting the battle of Atlanta in the Civil War. His research informed him that several members of his family had taken part in this battle, and he became very interested in studying this era. He was so enthralled with this history that he volunteered for eleven years to wear a woolen uniform in the summer in Atlanta to re-enact the battle.
Michael’s Family
“Mary Louise, my wife, is a saint. I married way above my pay grade,” he told me when I asked about his family. Until the COVID-19 lockdown, Mary Louise was a travel agent, a job that pretty much disappeared in 2020. They have two daughters, Julia and Sarah, and two cats called Fluff and Nebie. Michael had an incredible journey of music-making with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra by participating in its evolution into what he called “one of the best orchestras in the country.”