Matthew Shorten

Biography

Australian-born composer and tenor Matthew Shorten is a passionate exponent of Baroque music, art song, and the contemporary choral repertoire. He composes for diverse instrumentations, ranging from pieces rooted in historical performance practice to cutting-edge new music. Matthew is especially invested in the continued proliferation of contemporary works for traditional Japanese instruments, coalescing their rich timbral possibilities with those of Western Classical instruments, and unifying these opulent chamber music traditions to uplift audiences around the globe.

Matthew has received commissions from artists and ensembles all over the world, including the VOCES8 Foundation, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, chatterbird, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Vanderbilt Symphony Orchestra, and Wintergreen Music. Recent highlights include his commissioned choral work, White Fog, which was debuted and recorded by the VOCES8 Scholars at Minnesota Public Radio, and his orchestral piece Floating Isles, which won the 2018 Vanderbilt Symphony Call for Scores and the 2019 Tennessee Valley Composer’s Competition. An accomplished tenor, Matthew is a VOCES8 US Scholar, and a member of the artist roster of Chorosynthesis, a professional Seattle-based choral ensemble. He also received several accolades at the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, where he won the General Director’s Award in 2019 and was thrice named an International Semi-Finalist.

Matthew is a graduate of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he received his B.Mus. in Composition, Voice, and Violin summa cum laude, graduating as the 2020 Founder’s Medalist, the university’s highest honor.