The SFCA Composer-Not-in-Residence in 2012, and SFCA New Voices Project competition winner for 2006, Matthew Van Brink, is an American composer and pianist currently living in New York City. He has studied composition with Bruce Adolphe at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with David Dzubay, Samuel Adler and Don Freund at Indiana University ( B.Mus 2000), and with John Harbison and Lukas Foss at Boston University (D.M.A. 2005). He studied piano at Indiana University with Jeremy Denk and Evelyn Brancart. As a performer, Van Brink is foremost a pianist, but he has also played accordion in opera, chamber music and folk music groups He has also conducted premiere performances of his own and his colleagues’ compositions.
Van Brink’s recent compositions include music for dance and film as well as chamber music for the concert setting. Running at the Sunshine, a unique work for dance and spoken word, was written in collaboration with writer Jesse Jarnow and Boston University choreographer Judith Chaffee. Van Brink has extensive performance experience in the jazz genre. Employing techniques from this style, he composed a score for Patrick Ford’s short film Francine St Claire’s Mail. Other recent works include the trio Control Room, commissioned and premiered by the New York Youth Symphony. Up, Up, and Up commissioned by FleetBoston Celebrity Series and premiered by violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist David Deveau; and Dal Dosai, a flute sonata commissioned by Thomas Robertello and recently recorded on Crystal Records with pianist Winston Choi. Dal Dosai has been published by Tenuto Press, a division of Presser Music. ASCAP awarded Dal Dosai, Up, Up and Up, and Sextet with Morton Gould Young Composer Awards in 2002, 2003 and 2005.
Van Brink makes his living performing, composing, and teaching. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at Hofstra University, an instructor at Concordia Conservatory (Bronxville, NY), and an online facilitator of courses at Boston University’s School of Distance Education.