With the speed of the Polar Express and the support of his community, Northford’s talented Michael Horn quickly rose to the top to win a national Christmas music piano competition in December.

In two weeks’ time, Michael perfected, recorded, and uploaded his performance of Utah-based composer Jon Cheney’s newly released arrangement, “Santa’s Bringing Christmas to Town.” The arrangement blends the instantly recognizable notes of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” with “When Christmas Comes to Town” from the modern holiday classic story, Polar Express.

Michael’s performance was a fan favorite—and Cheney’s—among some 50,000 people Cheney estimated to have enjoyed sampling the holiday piano music shared during the 2021 national competition.

“All of the recordings that were submitted were incredible, and if my calculations are correct, this brought Christmas music to over 50,000 people during the month of December,” noted Cheney at his Facebook page @joncheneypiano.

Cheney conducts the annual contest as a way to share his latest Christmas music arrangements and to shine a spotlight on the music performances of others. In 2021, Cheney published a collection of four new arrangements and posted contest details at his page. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Michael happened to find his way to that very Facebook post.

“I’m always looking for new and interesting music to play, and I happened to come across Jonathan Cheney’s Facebook site, just surfing around Facebook, and I saw this Christmas competition he was having,” says Michael. “So I had about two weeks to be able to learn it well enough for the competition. It took a lot of practice. You can ask my wife—it was the only song she heard for two weeks!”

Make no mistake: Michael is a pro on the keys. A well-known area piano instructor, Michael grew up in North Haven and started playing at age 8. He’s been giving piano lessons since the age of 16. After graduating with the North Haven High School Class of 1999, he earned his degree in music education from Gordon College in Massachusetts.

Shortly after he sent in his contest video, shot at his Northford home studio, Michael was astonished to learn he had been selected as one of three finalists in the national competition. Next, using social media, the winner was to be selected based on a mix of total reactions (emojis sent in by viewers) per video (six points for most, four for second, and two for third), combined with Cheney’s grades of 5, 3 and 1 he’d already assigned the finalists ahead of the voting period.

As none of the finalists knew the grade Cheney had scored for their performance, much of their fate was in the hands of the listening public, right up to the moment the voting period ended at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 24, 2021.

“Using reactions was a good way to vote for your favorite video, because you can only do one reaction per Facebook account,” says Michael. “So, you really can’t fake that. You can’t vote every single day. It’s a one-time reaction; that’s it.”

In sharing his status as a finalist on his own social media outlets, Michael also humbly asked for help from those he’s come to connect with online, including friends, family, business associates, and piano students from across the area.

Together with his brother, Andrew Horn, Michael co-owns a videography business, Inspiration in Motion. Their company shot the community-supported, 2018 lip sync challenge viral video starring North Branford Police Department that aired on CBS television in 2019.

Michael also runs his own woodworking business, Burnt Barn Woodworks, which was born out of the pandemic.

“With the pandemic, music lessons were hard to do. I went virtual with a lot of music lessons, but it made it a bit more challenging,” Michael says. “And my videography business is primarily weddings, which were all gone for a little while. So I had a lot more time on my hands. Woodworking has always been a hobby of mine, and so I turned that into a little business.”

The response to his social media plea was much appreciated, Michael says.

“I asked for help from North Haven, North Branford and Northford, and Branford, East Haven, and Guilford,” he recalls. “This was the first competition that I ever entered. I tend to be a little more private, so much so that a lot of the people commented back to me that, ‘I didn’t know you were still playing like this.’ I don’t really like to show off, if that makes sense. I don’t like to say, ‘Hey, look at me do this.’”

In all, Michael’s video garnered more than 9,000 views and a huge number of reactions.

“I was amazed at the amount of support I got,” he says. “I never, never imagined that it would be at the level it was at. I’m so thankful for all the people in the surrounding towns for helping me do this. And I hope they really enjoyed it, too—I hope they really liked the music around Christmas-time.”

Michael adds he picked “Santa’s Bringing Christmas to Town” as his contest entry for several reasons. In addition to being drawn to the tune’s sentimental, soulful rhythms, “it was really fun to play,” he says.

“I also picked that song because my kids love the Polar Express, especially my son. It’s by far his favorite movie, and ‘When Christmas Comes to Town’ is a song from the movie. So that was one of the reasons I picked it, because I knew he’d really like it if I played it.”

Michael and his wife, Elaine Midolo Horn (also a North Haven native), have two children: son Alex, 4; and daughter, Aubrey, 8. Aubrey is already a budding pianist, with dad as her teacher.

“I was 8 years old when I started, but she’s way better than I was at 8,” says Michael, “She’s been going since she was 5, so she is way better than me when I was her age!”

As his kids were opening their presents on Christmas morning, Michael received the news from Cheney that his performance of “Santa’s Bringing Christmas to Town” had won the national competition’s top prize.

“He let me know on Christmas morning, so that was very nice to wake up to and see,” says Michael, adding, “He told me not only had I won the popular vote, but that I was also the selected winner on his end, too.”

As first prize winner, Michael was delighted to be awarded an iPad uploaded with the entire back catalogue of Cheney’s music. But Michael says the win also provided him with something more.

“For me, it was most about proving to myself that I could do this, that I could take my discipline and sit down during the busy Christmas season and be able to practice this song and get it ready enough for a competition within two weeks,” says Michael. “That, to me, was the biggest prize.”