Michael Surratt

Michael Surratt was Organist and Director of Music Ministries at the Union Church of Hinsdale 1979-2011. Since 2012 he has been Organist at First United Church of Oak Park. 

Michael began piano study at age 8 with Sue Southwick Daniel in Lexington, NC, on Mrs. Daniel's 7’ Mason & Hamlin model BB grand piano, which she won in a competition at New England Conservatory May 3, 1918. She chose her piano at the factory, which was then in Boston. Michael has owned that piano since 1976.

From age 4, Michael enjoyed watching his cousin play the organ at the church his family attended. His cousin is listed in the Guinness Book of Records with 73 years as the church organist with the longest tenure in the same church. She was the inspiration for his love of and career in music.

Michael’s family moved when he was 12. He then began organ lessons and became the organist at the church his family attended after they moved. 

Michael spent his junior and senior years in high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, a new high school and college for music, drama and dance, which opened in 1965. His organ teacher there was Margaret Vardell Sandresky. Mrs. Sandresky will celebrate her 100th birthday on April 27, 2021. She is the same age as the Western Springs Music Club.

Michael received his BMus from Oberlin College, and MMus from Northwestern University in organ performance.