Matthew King (composer, born 1967)

Matthew King (born 1967) is a British composer, pianist, and educator. His works include opera, piano and chamber music, and choral and orchestral pieces. He has been described by Judith Weir, Master of the Queen’s Music, as “one of Britain’s most adventurous composers, utterly skilled, imaginative, and resourceful." Matthew King has a YouTube channel called ‘The Music Professor’. Operas Several of King’s pieces incorporate a community component, combining amateurs and young people with professionals. King’s first chamber opera, The Snow Queen, was composed for the British soprano Jane Manning and her virtuoso ensemble Jane’s Minstrels. The Snow Queen was described by one reviewer as “music of distinctive beauty with disarming theater sense.” The opera Jonah, with a libretto by Michael Irwin (author), was commissioned by the Canterbury Festival and first produced in Canterbury Cathedral in 1996; the dramatic cantata Gethsemane was premiered by Florilegium at the Spitalfields Festival in 1998; the Brunel (opera project), featured on BBC Radio 4’s Setting Brunel to Music in October 2003. The community opera On London Fields (libretto by Alasdair Middleton), and winner of a Royal Phil