Matthew Ricketts (b. 1986, British Columbia) is a Canadian composer based in New York City. His music moves from extremes of presence and absence, from clamor to quietude, at once reticent and flamboyant. Matthew’s music has been called “lyrical, contrapuntal, rhythmically complex and highly nuanced” (The American Academy of Arts and Letters) and is noted for his “effervescent and at times prickly sounds,” “hypnotically churning exploration of melody” (ICareIfYouListen) as well as its “tart harmonies and perky sputterings” (The New York Times). He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow.
His works have been performed internationally by JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Flux Quartet, the Fromm Players, Quatuor Bozzini, the Chiara String Quartet; vocalists Tony Arnold, Sharon Harms, Lauren Worsham, Karim Sulayman and Ekmeles; Collage New Music, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, Ensemble Paramirabo, Argento and Talea Ensemble; soloists Jean-Willy Kunz, Nathaniel LaNasa, Sara Laimon and Julia Den Boer; and orchestras including the Aspen Philharmonic (Robert Spano, cond.), Esprit Orchestra (Alex Pauk, cond.), the Minnesota Orchestra (Osmo Vänskä, cond.), the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (Kent Nagano, cond.), the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. Matthew was Composer-Collaborator-In-Residence at East Carolina University from 2016-2018.
In 2018 Ricketts’ multilingual opera Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest (written with renowned Cree playwright Tomson Highway) opened the Montreal Symphony’s 84th season to great critical acclaim and went on to tour Indigenous communities throughout Québec. Recent and upcoming performances include the US premiere of Unruly Sun, written with Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell for Grammy Award-winning Karim Sulayman (Bay Chamber Concerts, Maine), an operatic adaptation of The Cremation of Sam McGee with Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist/lyricist Royce Vavrek (Vancouver Opera) and a new nativity oratorio for contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (in collaboration with celebrated Québecois author Alain Farah). Other recent premieres include works for Dominik Belavy (Brooklyn Art Song Society), Daniel McGrew (The Morgan Library) and Brett Polegato (Canadian Art Song Project through Calgary Opera, October 2024).
Matthew is the recipient of fellowships from Bogliasco Foundation (2023), Millay Arts (2022), Civitella Ranieri (2021), The American Academy of Arts and Letters (2020), MacDowell (2022; 2019), the Tanglewood Music Center (2018 Elliott Carter Memorial Fellowship) and the Aspen Music Festival (2017), in addition to the 2016 Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Prize, the 2016 Jacob Druckman Prize (Aspen Music Festival), the 2016 Mivos/Kanter Prize, the 2015 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award, a 2013 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and eight prizes in the SOCAN Foundation’s Awards for Young Composers.
Active as a writer as well as a composer, Matthew has published articles, reviews, poetry and libretti, and has worked closely with authors and poets Lauren J. Rogener, Paul Legault, Christian Schlegel, Mark Campbell, Mark Wunderlich, Royce Vavrek, Klara du Plessis and Tomson Highway on multiple collaborative projects. Other collaborative endeavors include scoring the feature-length film Glob Lessons (Tribeca Film Festival premiere, 2021) and recent projects with dancer-choreographers Brendan Drake and Jennifer Nichols.
Matthew’s principal mentors include Brian Cherney, John Rea and Chris Paul Harman at McGill University, and George Lewis and Fred Lerdahl at Columbia University, where he also served as a Core Lecturer from 2017-2020. Also active as a performing musician, Matthew sings with Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, works as a vocal accompanist and occasionally performs cabaret at venues around New York City.
Commission of Cent Soleils (new work for Marie-Nicole Lemieux and the Montreal Symphony) announced for December 2024
World premiere of new Yeats settings for the Brooklyn Art Song Society with Dominik Belavy & Nathaniel LaNasa, May 2024
World premiere of Contrition for countertenor, oboe and string orchestra (OCM commission), April 11 2024
Canadian premiere of Méloscuro (Piano Concerto no. 2) with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra & Roger Admiral, March 2024
World premiere of Lunch Poems 2 with Daniel McGrew and Nathaniel LaNasa at The Morgan Library, March 20 2024
Commission of Songs For Judith (through the Canadian Art Song Project and Terence Dalgleish) announced, February 1 2024
Canadian premiere of Swallow Songs featured on Vancouver’s Music On Main, February 20 2024
Podcast with Saad Haddad released (discussing song & opera), November 2023
Adrift (premiere of revised version) programmed with the Philharmoniches Staatsorchester Hamburg, September 4 2023
Selected as a 2023 Bogliasco Foundation fellow (Genoa, Italy), Spring 2023
Review of Unruly Sun premiere (Montréal, QC) featured in Revue L’Opéra, January 2023
Karim Sulayman premieres Unruly Sun (libretto: Mark Campbell) in Montréal, December 2022
New York Festival of Song features two world premieres (Nathaniel LaNasa, piano; Dominik Belavy, baritone), October 2022
Serving on Composition Faculty of the Longy School of Music’s 2022 Divergent Studio
Melodia selected for the official 2022 Royal Conservatory of Music Piano Syllabus (available for purchase here)
Selected as a 2022 Everwood Farmstead Foundation Retreat Artist
Awarded a Koussevitsky Foundation commission from the Library of Congress
Adrift nominated for the 2021 Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco Music Composition Prize
Still There awarded First Prize in the Graham Sommer Competition (September 2021)
Anaphora awarded the ECM+ Jury Prize (June 2021)
Interviewed for the Samuel Andreyev Podcast (June 2021)
Feature film Glob Lessons (original score: Matthew Ricketts) selected for the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival
New song cycle project with librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell announced on Opera Innovation
Professor George Lewis names Chaakapesh one of the Artforum Magazine’s Best Music of 2020
Adrift (Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra) premieres with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg (November 5 2020)
Release of LINEAGE: Contemporary Piano Music from Montreal (featuring Melodia), October 30 2020
ECM+ premieres Anaphora for the Génération Projet 2020/2021 Tour (October 20-29 2020, Québec)
Recipient of the 2020 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters
Emi Ferguson & Stephen Gosling premiere Swallow Songs at Peabody Conservatory (February 2020)
Named a 2020 Civitella Ranieri Fellow
Finalist for the Graham Sommer Competition (October 2020)
Performance of Seven By Seven by Collage New Music in Boston (January 12 2020)
Nominated for the 2020 Gaudeamus Award
Highest Light for solo organ to be performed at the 2020 Organ Festival of Canada (Victoria, BC)
Summer Line performed at the Calgary New Music Festival (October 2019)
Selected for the ECM+ Génération cross-Canada Tour (October 2020)
Premiere of new work for loadbang, April 2020 (NYC)
Premiere of Halo (Concerto for Two Trombones and Orchestra), Montreal Symphony Orchestra, August 10 2019 (Montreal)
Review, Eklektic Media (French)
Review, Clarin.com (Spanish)
Premiere of Ember, commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, written for FLUX quartet, August 2 2019 (Santa Fe)
Awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship
Awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, June-July 2019
Article in Lufthansa Magazine about Chaakapesh and the OSM’s tour of Northern Quebec
Podcast conversation as part of the Movers & Makers series available here
Wavefield Ensemble premieres chamber re-orchestration of Melodia at National Sawdust, January 27 2019 (review here)
The Minnesota Orchestra performs Melodia (Piano Concerto no. 1), January 18 2019
“Situation” from Song Cycle featured on Scrag Mountain Music Festival (Vermont), January 11-13 2019
Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest opens the Montreal Symphony’s 85th season and tours Québec, September 2018
Review (Français)
Review (English)