Bio

Colorado-based composer Matt Browne (b. 1988) strives to create music that meets Sergei Diaghilev’s famous challenge to Jean Cocteau: “Astonish me!”, through incorporating such eclectic influences as the timbral imagination and playfulness of György Ligeti, the shocking and humorous polystylism of Alfred Schnittke, and the relentless rhythmic energy of Igor Stravinsky. His music has been praised for its “unbridled humor” (New Music Box) and described as “witty” (The Strad) and “beautifully crafted and considered” (What’s On London).

Dr. Browne has had the privilege to collaborate with such ensembles as the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, PRISM Quartet, Albany Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Eastman Wind Ensemble, PUBLIQuartet, New York Virtuoso Singers, New Jersey Symphony, New England Philharmonic, and the Villiers Quartet. Recent projects include his Symphony no. 1 ‘The Course of Empire’ commissioned the Santa Rosa and Eugene Symphonies, States of Mind for percussion quartet, and a collaboration with Opera Omaha’s Poetry and Music.

Recently, Dr. Browne’s music has received honors such as winner of the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize (2017), first prize in the 2020 New Classics International Competition of the Moscow Conservatory (out of 2,000 submissions in 84 countries), a BMI Student Composer award (2015), a residency at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, fellow at CULTIVATE Copland House (2017), winner of the New England Philharmonic Call for Scores (2014), a residency at the Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute (2016), winner of the American Viola Society’s Maurice Gardner Composition award (2014), and a residency at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s First Annual Composers Institute (2013). Dr. Browne holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Music Composition from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Previous teachers include Michael Daugherty, Kristin Kuster, Carter Pann, and Daniel Kellogg