Matthew Tommasini

Matthew Tommasini (b. 1978) is an internationally recognized composer of expressive and engaging music and co-founder of the Connections Chamber Music Series. His compositions have been performed by principal members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Awards for his work include the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, and grants from the ASCAP Foundation's Leonard Bernstein Fund, the American Music Center's Composer Assistance Program, and the Subito program of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Composers Forum. In 2006 he participated in the American Composers Orchestra's Underwood New Music Reading Sessions. During the 2008-9 season, he served as composer-in-residence for the Chicago-based chamber music series Music in the Loft. Mr. Tommasini has also been active as a performer of his own music. In 2010, he premiered his Homage a Kazuo Ohno commissioned by the international Italian dance festival, danzfest, in memory of the Japanese Butoh pioneer. His performance accompanied the choreography of noted Butoh dancer Tadashi Endo. Mr. Tommasini received his BA degree in composition from UCLA, studying with Paul Chihara and Ian Krouse. He received his MA and DMA degrees from the University of Michigan, where he studied with William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, Leslie Bassett, and Evan Chambers. He currently lives in Hong Kong where he is Adjunct Associate Professor and Composer-in-Residence at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.