Matt has been writing music since he started university, sketching ideas whilst training to be a viola player, and completing a Bachelor of Music/Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne, with postgraduate studies at ANAM. Having participated in the MSO’s Cybec Young Composer program, Matt was appointed the 2021 Cybec Young Composer in Residence, and will write three works for the Orchestra.
As violist of the Auric quartet, Matt competed at the Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition, and festival engagements have included the Perth and Melbourne International Arts Festivals, the Australian String Quartet's Dunkeld festival, and the Four Winds Festival in Bermagui. As a chamber musician, Matt has also performed in the Australian Octet, and Melbourne-based ensembles Quartz, Rubiks and Arcko. Matt was soloist in the first complete performance in Australia of Morton Feldman's The Viola in My Life with an orchestra of ANAM musicians.
As a composer, he has been writing and arranging for professional and amateur ensembles in a variety of styles since 2014. His first string quartet Shapes was workshopped and performed in 2017 by the Flinders Quartet, and was awarded the Scarlet’s Fund prize resulting in a residency in Hobart in May 2018. In September 2019 Matt was composer in residence at the Bermagui Four Winds Festival.
The Flinders Quartet commissioned Out of Hibernation for their first subscription concert tour in February 2019, and was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant to work on the quartet with mentoring from Brett Dean in Berlin and London in January 2019, with that mentorship ongoing. Matt has also been commissioned to write works for the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne Chamber Players, Ossicle Duo, Affinity Collective, Zoe Knighton, and Katie Yap.