Matthew Peterson (born July 22, 1984) is a classical composer of operas, choral works, orchestral and chamber music.
Matthew Peterson (born July 22, 1984) is a classical composer of operas, choral works, orchestral and chamber music.
Matthew Peterson was born and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He studied music composition at St. Olaf College, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and Gotland School of Music Composition [1] where his teachers included Mary Ellen Childs and Sven-David Sandström.
Peterson is a freelance composer based in Smedjebacken, Sweden, first arriving on a Fulbright Award in 2008. His Fulbright project was the true-crime chamber opera Voir Dire, [2] a work that received critical-acclaim after its 2017 world premiere at Fort Worth Opera. [3] He is a member of FST (the Association of Swedish Composers) [4] and has been commissioned by Swedish musicians and ensembles including the Swedish Radio Choir, Dalasinfoniettan, guitarist Mårten Falk, Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir, Uppsala Vokalensemble, Sofia Vokalensemble, and Stockholm Saxophone Quartet. His music has been featured at international music festivals Svensk Musikvår, Purpur (South Africa), Ljudvågor, Lund Choral Festival, Jubilate and Sound of Stockholm.
In 2014 Peterson was awarded the ASCAP Rudolph Nissim Award for orchestral composition. [5] The same year he won both first prize and the audience/radio-listener's prize at the Uppsala composer competition for And all the trees of the field will clap their hands for chamber orchestra, [6] and his true-crime opera Voir Dire was the winner of the Fort Worth Opera Frontiers showcase for new opera. [7] In 2021 Peterson was awarded the first Sven-David Sandström Choral Composition Award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. [8] The Royal Academy also awarded him with the 2023 Carin Malmlöf-Forssling composer prize.
Peterson's music has been performed at venues across Europe and North America such as the Kennedy Center, Berwaldhallen, Stockholms Konserthuset, Minneapolis Orchestra Hall and Gothenburg Konserthuset by ensembles including the Swedish Radio Choir, Stockholm Saxophone Quartet, Minnesota Orchestra, Washington National Opera, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, VocalEssence, Malmö Symphony, Chanticleer, Vanemuine Symphony, Fort Worth Opera, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and others. His works are regularly performed on St. Olaf College’s annual Christmas concerts. [9]
The courtroom opera Voir Dire is adapted from true-crime stories witnessed by librettist Jason Zencka while he was court reporter for the Stevens Point Journal. [10] The 2017 world premiere production by Fort Worth Opera received national critical acclaim. Opera Now called Voir Dire “startlingly immediate and journalistic in feel, made memorable by the depth and texture of the music.” [11] Heidi Waleson, in her review for TheWall Street Journal, wrote: “The opera drills unsentimentally into the tragedies of ordinary people...its power lies in how believable their emotions are.” [12]
Lifeboat, an opera with libretto by Emily Roller, is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. A John F Kennedy Center Commission for Washington National Opera, it premiered January 14, 2017 at the Kennedy Center. Classical Voice America praised Peterson's “admirable mastery of both vocal writing and colorful orchestration,” [13] and Anne Midgette of the Washington Post wrote “Lifeboat began dramatically with a storm scene, then moved onto the tranquility of the becalmed, focusing on three shipwreck survivors in a lifeboat, and culminating in a vocal trio that Peterson was able to make truly beautiful.” [14]
Peterson's first opera, The Binding of Isaac, is a modern retelling of the Biblical story of Abraham, set in a religious-fundamentalist compound. This was Peterson's first collaboration with librettist and writer Jason Zencka. It premiered at St. Olaf College in 2006 and was awarded the 2007 BMI Student Composer Award. [15]
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