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]
Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Judith Weir is a British composer serving as Master of the King's Music. Appointed in 2014 by Queen Elizabeth II, Weir is the first woman to hold this office.
Chen Yi is a Chinese-American violinist and composer of contemporary classical music. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts (M.A.) in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji, and has received awards from the Koussevistky Music Foundation and American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School and in 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.
Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and professor.
Meriwether Lewis Spratlan Jr. was an American music academic and composer of contemporary classical music.
The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet is a professional ensemble of four saxophonists which performs classical and modern music.
Wayne Peterson was an American composer, pianist, and educator. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Face of the Night, the Heart of the Dark in 1992, when its board overturned the jury's unanimous selection of Concerto Fantastique by Ralph Shapey.
Colin James Brumby was an Australian composer and conductor.
Jan Sandström is a Swedish classical music composer. His compositions include the so-called Motorbike Concerto for trombone and orchestra and his choral setting of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.
Frank La Rocca is an American classical music composer.
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian is a British composer, singer, and harper. She is considered one of today's leading emerging composers.
Marie Samuelsson is a Swedish composer.
Vivian Fung is a JUNO Award-winning Canadian-born composer who writes music for orchestras, operas, quartets, and piano. Her compositions have been performed internationally.
Ylva Q Arkvik is a prominent composer of contemporary classical music. She has written about 50 works for varying settings such as chamber ensemble, orchestra, choir, opera, theatre and electroacoustic music. Her works have been performed by Swedish ensembles and orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Kroumata, the Stockholm Saxophone Quartet and Musica Vitae.
Christopher Alan Schmitz is an American composer and winner of the 2007 Sammy Nestico Award in Jazz Composition. He is currently a professor of music theory at Mercer University, having previously taught at Southwestern College in Kansas.
Amir Shpilman is an Israeli composer.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
