Glebe Music Festival

In conjunction with The Glebe Society Inc

Matthew Wood

"a great deal of flair...drawing unexpected colours out of the great welter of sound'"SMH 27 November 2001.

"Matthew Wood . . . received support from enlightened individuals to explore the link between music and words with intelligence, subtlety and sophistication." SMH 15 October 2002.

In recent years Matthew Wood has emerged as a musician of versatile talents. He is regularly employed as a conductor of orchestral, choral, operatic and new music repertoire.

As a finalist in Symphony Australia's 2002 Young Conductor of the Year Award Matthew conducted the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Gerswhin's American in Paris. This successful performance led to an invitation to conduct The Australian Pro Arte Orchestra in concerts throughout 2003 and 2004. As a finalist in 2001, Matthew conducted the Sydney Symphony in a programme of Stravinsky and Sibelius, subsequently being awarded a financial scholarship from The Orchestral Association Network (TOAN).

On the invitation of internationally recognised conductor pedagogue Maestro Jorma Panula, as one of only 16 conductors chosen worldwide, Matthew recently traveled to Brasov Romania to attend and conduct at the world symposium on the orchestral music of Jean Sibelius. After a successful performance of Sibelius' 1^st Symphony, Matthew was invited by the Brasov Philharmonic Orchestra to return in 2004 as a guest conductor.

Matthew is also committed to the performance and recognition of new Australian compositions. His most recent contribution was to conduct the Halcyon Ensemble in a series of concerts in Sydney and Canberra, premiering two Australian compositions by Rosalind Page and Andrew Robbie along with the Australian premiere of renowned Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's Grammaire Des Rêves. Matthew will return to conduct Halcyon later in 2003. Matthew has also recently finished a chorus master position with Cantillation, in conjunction with the Sydney Symphony's Contemporary Music Festival and Mozart's Requiem.

Matthew has studied conducting with Maestros Jorma Panula, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Arvo Volmer, David Porcelijn, Johannes Fritzsch, Peter McCoppin, Christopher Seaman, and János Fürst. In 1999 he was awarded a position in the Masters of Performance (Conducting) course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He was soon the recipient of the Elaine McCaghern Musical Scholarship for post-graduate study and was awarded the same scholarship in 2000, along with the Alan Bellhouse Memorial Scholarship for Conducting.

Matthew has worked as an assistant conductor for many of Sydney's leading ensembles such as the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, the Ku-ring-gai Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Youth Orchestra Association and the Sydney Chamber Choir. He is currently the Conductor and Artistic Director of Bel a cappella, Conductor and Artistic Director of the Waverley/Randwick Philharmonic Orchestra, guest conductor of the North Sydney Symphony and is lecturer of orchestral conducting for the Wesley Institute of Music.