“Teaching is not just about putting something back into the system; it’s about staying in touch with the passion, enthusiasm and curiosity that led me to music in the first place.”

Matthew has worked in a variety of educational environments and with a wide range of students, teaching composition and performance. With extensive experience, he has developed a very positive approach to teaching, with a focus on obtaining achievable goals and developing the ‘all-round’ musician.


Appointments

University of Sussex (Associate Music Tutor, 2001 – 2007)
Working within the Department of Music, the School of Humanities and the Centre for Continuing Education, Matthew has taught on courses including Composition and Analysis, Music and Society, Score-reading, Orchestration and Studying Cultures. He also delivered lecture/seminars on Twentieth Century Opera for the Opera Certificate access course, aimed at mature students and timetabled as evening classes. As a tutor Matthew often worked with individuals or small seminar groups.


Sound Inventors (Various posts, 2001 – 2005)
Sound Inventors was a composition-based education project, funded by Youth Music and administrated by the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM). Over the course of four years, week-long projects (with associated training and performance days) were undertaken in many locations involving thousands of children, professional performers and composers.
Matthew’s involvement began in 2001 as an assistant composer in Hastings, working with 60 primary school age children. In 2004 he was invited to be Lead Composer for a project in Bedford, with overall responsibility for the project and working with a team of two assistant composers and four professional musicians; the project was highly successful and forty five secondary school age children produced pieces. In September 2005 Matthew led one of the final projects, based at The Sage Gateshead and involving Elizabeth Wingfield (soprano) and a team of four instrumentalists.
For more general information on how Sound Inventors operated, please visit www.spnm.org.uk/soundinventors

Other positions have included employment as a peripatetic brass and theory teacher by Kirklees Music Service (1998-2000) and as a learning support tutor at Hove Park School (2001-2002).

Matthew has taught privately for many years, and currently has vacancies for students. He teaches all brass instruments, music theory, composition and arranging, and conducting. Please contact Matthew for full details of rates and services offered.