Matthew Shlomowitz (born 7 February 1975) is a composer of contemporary classical music and Associate Professor in Composition at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

Biography

He was raised in

Adelaide, Australia Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The demo ...

, and studied with at the

Sydney Conservatorium of Music The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music and known by the moniker "The Con") is a heritage-listed music school in Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the ol ...

and with

Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...

at Stanford University. He also studied privately with

Michael Finnissy Michael Peter Finnissy (born 17 March 1946) is an English composer, pianist, and pedagogue. An immensely prolific composer, his music is "notable for its dramatic urgency and expressive immediacy". Although he rejects the label, he is often r ...

in the United Kingdom. Since 2002 he has lived in London where he lectured at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

and for the

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

London Program. He taught composition at Durham University during the 2008/09 academic year and was a Programme Collaborator for the Borealis Festival in Norway.

Music

He is co-director of

Plus minus ensemble {{no footnotes, date=April 2018 Plus Minus is a music group that formed in 2003 specializing in contemporary classical music. Plus Minus's programming features a mixture of avant-garde and experimental traditions, focussing particularly on open-in ...

and the performance series Rational Rec and is a member of InterInterInter, a group that creates events mixing performance and audience activity. He was also a co-founder of Ensemble Offspring. He has been represented by the New Voices scheme at the British Music Information Centre and by the

Australian Music Centre The Australian Music Centre (AMC), formerly known briefly as Sounds Australian, is a national organisation promoting and supporting art music in Australia, founded in 1974. It co-hosts the Art Music Awards along with APRA AMCOS, and publishes ' ...

. The bulk of his compositions are for chamber ensembles and often involve unusual instrumental combinations. ''Free Square Jazz'', for instance, is for recorder, electric guitar, double bass and drum kit and ''Line and Length'' is scored for soprano saxophone, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet & bassoon. A number of his works are interdisciplinary such as the music-video pieces ''Train Travel'' and ''Six Aspects of the Body in Image and Sound'' (co-created with Rees Archibald) and an ongoing series of works for visual performer and musician called ''Letter Pieces''. Certain works fall more comfortably into the genre of "performance pieces" such as ''Northern Cities'' and ''When is a Door Not a Door?'' Other works blur the boundaries between concert music and performance piece such as ''Five Monuments of Our Time'', an orchestral work that requires the conductor to perform a series of choreographed gestures often ludicrously unrelated to the music being played. Such apparent absurdity and humor is not unintended; it has been said that, Some of his music shows the structural constraints analogous to the rules of

Oulipo Oulipo (, short for french: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: ''"workshop of potential literature"'', stylized ''OuLiPo'') is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works ...

; familiar sounds from popular and everyday culture are also a regular feature of his music palette.

Musical style

He has described his own music as being "something like the bastard love child of

and

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

Musical works

Selected musical works, including commissions and major works, are:

Operas

*Electric Dreams (2017)

Prizes and awards

*7th Johann-Joseph-Fux Competition for Opera Composition

References

External links

Matthew Shlomowitz official site

British Music Information Centre

Australian Music Centre
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shlomowitz, Matthew 1975 births 21st-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers Australian classical composers Australian male classical composers Constrained writing Living people Sydney Conservatorium of Music alumni 20th-century Australian male musicians 20th-century Australian musicians 21st-century Australian male musicians 21st-century Australian musicians