Michael Quell was born in 1960. He studied music at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt/Main (studying guitar with Heinz Teuchert, harmony and counterpoint with K.-J. Müller, conducting with A. Ickstadt and D. Resch, musicology with L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht, Helmut Hucke and Peter Cahn, amongst others). At the same time he studied composition with Hans-Ulrich Engelmann and also philosophy and theology at the J.-W. Goethe University in Frankfurt. From 1985-89 he studied composition in the master class Rolf Riehm at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt.

He now works as a composer in Fulda, with various engagements as a lecturer.
Since 2007 lectureship musicology at the J. W. Goethe-University Frankfurt.

In the recent years his works have been awarded with various prices, such as “Kunstpreis 1989 Frankfurt”, 1^st price of the “Internationale Toyoko Yamashita Kompositionswettbewerb” Berlin 1989, on the occasion of the Gaudeamus composers competition one of his works has been selected for a premiere at the “International Gaudeamus Music Week” 1988 in Amsterdam, “Elisabeth-Schneider-Kompositionspreis 2003” to name but a few of them.

His works have been performed at international festivals such as S.E.M.A. (Semaine Européenne des Musiques d'Aujord'hui) in Paris, the Festival de musique in Montreux/Vevey, the Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam, the Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt, the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, International Pianoforum … antasten … Heilbronn, Festival Slowind 2005 in Ljubljana, Chamber Music America Los Angeles, Contemporary Music Festival Cortona, Entrecuerdas Festival Santiago, Chile, SoundScape Festival Pavia, Perth, Melbourne, New York etc.) as well as being recorded by numerous domestic and foreign broadcasting companies (HR, WDR, BR, DLF, DLR, MDR, NDR, Radio Suisse Romande, Netherlands Radio, KPFK, CBC, NRK etc.).

Furthermore his works have been published by the TONOS-Musikverlag in Darmstadt, and some of his compositions are also available on CD.

Recently his works have been mainly concerned with the chances and possibilities of composition in interdisciplinary dialogue. The main works in this respect are “peri tu ontos – hu sā'aq 4,6692 ah“ (premiere Amsterdam, 1988), “Ekstare“ (premiere Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, 1990), “temps et couleurs I“ (premiere Darmstadt, 1998), “Interdependenzen“ (premiere Freiburg, 1998), “Inside ... out - hommage à R. Barthes, P. Feyerabend, Diogenes u. die Kyniker” (premiere 1998), “Satori” (premiere Singapur 1999), “atremia” (premiere Sofia 2001), “anisotropie - (vier) (aggregat)-zustände” for piano (premiere 2002 Heilbronn), “Anamorphosis I” (premiere Freiburg 2002), “Anamorphosis II (-Polymorphia)” (premiere Freiburg 2003), "Momentaufnahmen Caprichos - Reflexionen zu Goya ... und darüber hinaus ..." (premiere Wien 2004), "Enigma- vom Zauber der entgegengesetzten Denkweise (premiere Fresno 2007), Achronon (wp 2010) amongst others.