Dr. Michael Vaughn
Director of Music Ministrymvaughn@avonumc.net
A native of Birmingham, Michael is rediscovering his Southern roots; recently returning home after spending more than 30 years in Chicago. Upon graduating from Birmingham-Southern College, Michael moved to the Windy City, where he received his Masters and PhD in historical musicology from Northwestern University. He then embarked upon a long career in higher education, serving as a professor of music at National-Louis University until his retirement in 2024.
As a lifelong United Methodist, Michael has an active interest in, and deep love for, our Wesleyan musical heritage, and is a passionate advocate for the active role of music in worship and in the life of the Church. An experienced church musician, Michael was most recently organist/choirmaster at St. Matthew’s Church in suburban Chicago. He thoroughly enjoys working with musicians of all ages and levels of experience…or inexperience!
In his spare time, Michael is an avid traveler, a dedicated concert-goer, an admirer and explorer of religious architecture, a voracious reader (non-fiction as a rule), an Anglophile, and a failed thespian. He has a dry (some would say sarcastic) sense of humor cultivated by a love of classic British comedy, and can readily recite almost all of the dialogue from Fawlty Towers.
