Matthew Van Brink,  composer, pianist, accordionist

Biography
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Matt Van Brink is a composer, pianist and accordionist living in New York City. He has received numerous residencies, prizes, and recognition for his work. He was an artist resident at the MacDowell Colony, served as composer-in-residence for Boston’s Collage New Music, participated in the VocalEssence Essentially Choral new music reading sessions, and is currently a composer in the BMI Musical Theater Workshops. Matt has received three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and the Northridge Composition Prize as well as prizes and performances from String Orchestra of New York City, San Francisco Choral Artists, TransforMusic, and the Delius Competition. He has attended the Aspen Music Festival, Educational Bridge Project’s Days of American Culture in St. Petersburg, and has been a guest performer at the Tanglewood Music Center.

Matt receives frequent performances of his compositions and arrangements and has been commissioned both by individual musicians and by established institutions. Most recently, a series of commissions from Concordia Conservatory with support from the ASCAP Foundationhas resulted in several one-act musicals for children and many works of chamber music for student performers. His flute sonata Dal Dosai was commissioned by Thomas Robertello and is recorded by him on Crystal Records and by Paul Dunkel on MSR Classics.  Four of his arrangements will appear on Polkastra’s debut album Apolkalypse Now!, due in August 2009. Additional commissions have come from Collage New Music, The Austin Chapter of Hadassah, New York Youth Symphony Chamber Program, Celebrity Series of Boston, American Guild of Organists Suffolk Chapter, as well as other individuals and friends.
 
Schott Music publishes Matt’s two arrangements (piano trio; violin and piano) of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin. Tenuto Press, a division of Presser Music, publishes Dal Dosai and the woodwind duet Shabu Shabu. Matt’s setting of the Hebrew prayer "V'Shamru" is included in Transcontinental Music Publications' anthology Music for Shabbat Vol. III.

Matt has given talks on his music at University of Nevada Las Vegas, California State University Northridge, Boston University, Concordia Conservatory, Washington University in St. Louis, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute. He has held positions at Hofstra University (Adjunct Assistant Professor), M.I.T (Affiliated Artist) and Boston University (Teaching Associate) and he is currently piano faculty and composer at Concordia Conservatory (Bronxville, NY).

Matt studied composition with Bruce Adolphe at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (1995–1996), with David Dzubay, Samuel Adler and Don Freund at Indiana University School of Music (B.Mus 2000), and with John Harbison and Lukas Foss at Boston University School of Music (D.M.A. 2005). He studied piano with Jeremy Denk at Indiana University.


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