Michael Abels (born October 8, 1962) is an American composer best known for the opera Omar, co-written with Rhiannon Giddens, and his scores for the Jordan Peele films Get Out, Us and Nope.
Other recent media projects include the films Bad Education, Nightbooks, Fake Famous, and the docu-series Allen v. Farrow.
Recent commissions include a work for the National Symphony Orchestra and a guitar concerto for Mak Grgić.
[5] In 2023, the opera Omar, co-written by Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Abels, who is mixed race,[7] eventually studied West African drumming techniques at California Institute for the Arts, and sang in a predominantly black church choir to further explore his African-American roots.