Latcham studied philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology at Edinburgh University and later took harpsichord lessons at Edinburgh University. He spent over twenty years in the Netherlands lecturing, running an independent workshop where he built and restored harpsichords and other stringed keyboard instruments, and working at Edinburgh University. Michael participated in preparing Edinburgh University's extensive collection of musical instruments for the first public exhibition in over sixty years. In 2010, Latcham published a facsimile edition of transcribed and annotated notebooks of renowned German piano maker Johann David Schiedmayer (1753—1805) and his son, Johann Lorenz Schiedmayer (1786—1860); a few years later, a similar facsimile edition of annotated Johann Andreas Stein's notebooks followed. He served as co-chair of the International Symposium on Spanish Keyboard Music "Diego Fernández" in 2012, organized by the Ibero-American Music Study Group at the American Musicological Society. In 2013, Michael Latcham worked on the early Hammerflügels catalog for the Edinburgh University in Nuremberg.