Matthew Barnson

Kate Soper and I are teaching the composers at this terrific institute this summer. Please feel free to forward to students or colleagues interested. We're just about one month out from the Feb 15 application deadline for the first-ever Yarn/Wire/Institute at Stony Brook University! The program runs from July 6-15, and there are still spots open for piano, percussion, and composition. The application is FREE, and you can check out all the details at http://yarnwire.org/YWIBrochure.pdf.

At some point, whether it be for reasons personal, professional, or purely psychological, most composers feel obliged to write a string quartet. Impressive is the composer who manages to unearth their own voice in such a largely excavated medium. Even more impressive is the composer who has the tenacity to develop that voice over the course of multiple works. New York-based composer Matthew Barnson has done just this, and his new album Sibyl Tones on Tzadik allows us to retrace his inventive excursions into a genre that is notoriously difficult to reinvent.

Matthew Barnson joins American Opera Projects as a fellow in the Composers & the Voice Program for 2015-16. The two-year fellowships, made possible through a generous grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, include a year of working with the company’s Resident Ensemble of Singers and Artistic Team at AOP’s home base in Fort Greene, Brooklyn followed by a year of continued promotion and development through AOP and its strategic partnerships.

New Morse Code invited Matthew Barnson to take part in their 2015 Avaloch Farm New Music Initiative

The New Music Initiative invites composer/performer combinations developing new and collaborative work to apply to be part of an extraordinary experience. The Initiative is an organic outgrowth of the Avaloch “Bring a Composer” concept. It resonates with the essential nature of the Avaloch experience which includes the sharing of ideas, creating new networks, and catalyzing future collaborations.

The Copland House Residency Awards were inspired by Copland's exceptional legacy of support for his fellow composers. Typically, six to nine gifted, emerging or mid-career American composers each year are invited to reside, one at a time, at Rock Hill, Aaron Copland's restored, longtime New York home. There, they can focus on their creative work, free from the distractions of daily life and other professional responsibilities.