Born in London, Matthew Kaner studied Music at King’s College London and was jointly awarded the Purcell Prize for graduating top of his year in 2008. He then gained a distinction for his Masters at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, supervised by Julian Anderson, where he subsequently continued his studies as a Composition Fellow. He was a Teaching Fellow at King’s from 2008 until 2015 and has been teaching at the Guildhall School since 2009, where he became a Professor of Composition in 2013.
Matthew has composed for numerous leading orchestras, ensembles and choirs, including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Siglo de Oro, BBC Singers, King’s College London Chapel Choir, Trio Isimsiz and the Van Kujik Quartet. He has also written for soloists Guy Johnston, Ashley Riches, Richard Uttley, Benjamin Baker, Mark Simpson, Sam Corkin and others. His music has been performed at various venues in the UK and abroad, including Seiji Ozawa Hall, the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, the Purcell Room, LSO St. Luke’s and Snape Maltings. It has also been broadcast widely on BBC Radio 3 and NTS Radio, and has featured in the Aldeburgh, Spitalfields, Norfolk & Norwich, The Rest is Noise, City of London and Victoria International Music Festivals.
In 2013 Matthew was one of the winners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize; he was the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood in 2012, and has attended various prestigious composition courses led or mentored by composers including George Benjamin, Oliver Knussen, Wolfgang Rihm and John Harbison. He enjoys a particularly close association with the Workers Union Ensemble — who have programmed his work seven times to date — becoming their first ever Composer-in-Association in 2013. His commission for the London Symphony Orchestra, The Calligrapher’s Manuscript, was premiered under the baton of Robin Ticciati in the Barbican Hall in September 2013; it has now been recorded and is available to purchase on the LSO Live label.
He was BBC Radio 3’s Embedded Composer in 3 during their 70th anniversary season; his residency with the station, in partnership with Sound and Music, took place from September to December 2016, and involved the writing of over 10 new works, which were premiered on air throughout the period. His piece Encounters for Young Commissions was premiered at Lucerne Festival 2017 and was conducted by Jeffrey Means.
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