Australian-born composer Matthew Shorten envisions his compositions with an innate expressive sensitivity, ethereal harmonic language, and rich timbral sensibilities. He has received commissions internationally from countless trailblazing organizations, festivals, and concert artists, including the VOCES8 & the VOCES8 Foundation, Choir & Organ Magazine, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, chatterbird, the Aster Quartet of the University of Michigan, Anwen Mai Thomas at the Royal Academy of Music, the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Wintergreen Music, and the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, among others. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of his compositional inspirations – traversing the bounds of music, art, literature, and the humanities – Matthew’s projects and commissions include his chamber work Ekphrases, a string quartet which brings three cross-cultural portraits to life, and a chamber oratorio entitled The Last Tea, centered on the ritual death and final tea ceremony of the pre-eminent Japanese tea master Sen no Rikyū.

In 2021-22, Matthew was a Henry Luce Scholar in Asia, forging an array of international artistic partnerships across Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and beyond. As part of this cross-disciplinary work at the nexus of composition, performance, and research, Matthew was a Visiting Artist and Guest Conductor with Voices of Singapore, a Visiting Researcher at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and a Guest Artist at the Phuket School of Music. Matthew’s diverse artistic interests engage with ideas of cross-cultural coalescence in the arts and beyond, traditional Japanese music, the proliferation of historical performance practice, and global choral repertoires.

Matthew received his Bachelor of Music summa cum laude in Composition, Voice, and Violin from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he graduated as the 2020 Founder’s Medalist, the university’s highest honor. Matthew has received several awards and grants, including a Cortona Sessions Fellowship in Composition and Voice, designation as a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, the Margaret Branscomb Prize, the S.S. and I.M.F. Marsden Prize in Musical Scholarship, a New Haven Symphony Orchestra Young Composers Fellowship, an Oregon Bach Festival Fellowship in Voice and Composition, designation as an American Composer’s Orchestra EarShot Residency Finalist, and the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition General Director’s Award.

Matthew is based in Massachusetts, where he is pursuing an M.A. at the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art at the Clark Art Institute and a Curatorial Intern at the Williams College Museum of Art.