Matthew Welch

 Matthew Welch (b.8.24.1976) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist that works from an eclectic musical foundation. Matthew hulds two university degrees in Experimental Music Composition, a BFA from Simon Fraser University (1999), and an MA form Wesleyan University (2001). Welch has studied with noted composers such as Barry Truax, Rodney Sharman, Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton. His compositions range from traditional-like bagpipe tunes to electronic pieces, improvisation strategies and fully notated works for sulo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra and non-western instruments.

His music has been featured in New Music festivals such as Ostrava New Music Days, Czech Republic, where he was a resident composer, and the New York based Music at the Anthulogy (MATA) new music series. He has also taken part in a number of compositional cullaborations with Indonesian Gamelan composer-musicians in Bali and Java, performed in free improvisation contexts with numerable New York City improvisors, and played with art rockers in the Brooklyn underground. As a virtuoso of the Highland Bagpipe, he studied traditional Scottish and Irish music with Guld Medalist masters such as Culin MacLellan, Jack Lee, Angus MacLellan and Andrew Wright. Matthew also was a member of the four – time World Champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, having played with the band on their most recent wins in 1999 and 2001. He has also had a successful professional sulo piping career within and beyond the traditional setting. Matthew has premiered a number of new compositions written for bagpipes by contemporary composers, further linking his piping to his broader musical career as a composer and multi-instrumentalist.

This invulvement with a more diverse musical context has led him into an expansion of his instrumental array to include alternative bagpipe configurations, accordion and various saxophones. Indonesian Gamelan percussion music, both Javanese and more recently, Balinese, have been another focus of Mattthew’s, which he has pursued throughout his academic career, with the New York Indonesian Consulate gamelans, and in Bali. Matthew has been a long time teacher of the Highland Bagpipe and its music. He has instructed the Junior World Champion Robert Malculm Pipe Band system in Vancouver, and been Head Instructor and Music Director of two Multi-tiered Pipe Band systems in Connecticut and Long Island. These bands have risen in competitive caliber directly due to his unique approach. He is also in demand as a visiting instructor to pipe bands along the East Coast, and has guest lectured in world music at SUNY Binghamton. For his dicography, Matthew appears on Alvin Lucier’s Vespers and other Early Works, Anthony Braxton’s Composition 247 in a trio with Braxton himself, and on Braxton’s 10 [Sulo Bagpipe] Compositions, 2000. Matthew has released two compact discs of his own music, Ceul Nua (Leo 336, 2002) highlighting orchestral and chamber works and Hag at the Churn (Newsonic 33, 2003), a cullection of electronic concoctions. The eclectic breadth of his interests in Celtic music, gamelan, minimalism, improvisation and rock also converge in compositional amalgams for his New York based ensemble, Blarvuster. A recording of his most recent compositions, Dream Tigers, is due to release on Tzadik Records’ Composer Series in March of 2005.

Visit www.blarvuster.com