Matthew Ricketts is a Canadian composer. A graduate of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, Matthew has studied under renowned composers Brian Cherney, John Rea and Chris Paul Harman. His music has been performed across Canada and in the United States, at festivals and concerts in Montreal, Toronto, Nebraska, Whately, Winnipeg, New York, Texas and Boston, where his Double Concerto shared for first prize at the ALEA III International Composition Competition (2007). In 2010 his chamber orchestra piece In What Language? was awarded first prize at the SOCAN Foundation’s Awards for Young Composers (category: Sir Ernest MacMillan).
Matthew has attended masterclasses with composers Martin Matalon (2007), Michael Finnissy (2009) and Magnus Lindberg (2010). He has been commissioned by or written for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Quartet 441, The Chiara String Quartet, soprano Margot Rood, Trio 86, Concerto Della Donna, The Bozzini Quartet, Yarn/Wire, the Esprit Orchestra and many talented performers of his own generation.
Matthew currently resides in New York City and is studying composition at Columbia University with George Lewis and Fred Lerdahl. Recent and upcoming engagements include the Columbia Composers series, being featured at Cluster New Music Festival as both a composer and librettist (Winnipeg, 2011), attending the Bozzini Quartet’s Composer’s Kitchen (Montreal, 2011), the Esprit Orchestra’s New Wave Young Composers Festival (Toronto, 2011), the Boston New Music Initiative concert series and the Domaine Forget New Music Session.