1952–

Introduction

Born: 1952, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

portrait

Biography

Matthews be­gan his mu­sic­al stu­dies at age four, on pi­ano. At age eight, he be­gan trum­pet stu­dy with the for­mer first chair of the Phi­la­del­phia Or­ches­tra. He be­gan his or­gan stu­dies at the age 12, and took his first church or­gan­ist po­si­tion at age 14.

Having re­ceived a Phi­la­del­phia Board of Edu­ca­tion mu­sic schol­ar­ship, he did his un­der­gra­du­ate work in Church Mu­sic and Or­gan at West­min­ster Choir College, where he gra­du­at­ed mag­na cum laude and re­ceived both the Sen­ior Class Con­duct­ing Aw­ard and the Chris­tian Lead­er­ship Aw­ard. Dur­ing this time, he rep­re­sent­ed the Prince­ton ar­ea col­lege com­mu­ni­ty at the an­nu­al Pre­si­den­tial Pray­er Break­fast in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Matthews re­ceived a Mas­ter of Mu­sic de­gree in Cho­ral Con­duct­ing from Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty. At age 22, he was asked to con­duct the Je­ru­sa­lem Cham­ber Or­ches­tra for a re­cord­ing pro­ject in Tel Aviv, Is­ra­el. He al­so con­duct­ed the na­tion­al tour of this pro­ject through­out ma­jor Am­er­ican ci­ties the fol­low­ing year.

In 1976, at age 23, Mat­thews was in­vit­ed to join the fa­cul­ty of Ny­ack Col­lege in Ny­ack, New York as the Di­rect­or of Cho­ral Ac­tiv­i­ties. In 1981, he re­ceived his Doc­tor of Mus­ic­al Arts de­gree from Combs Col­lege of Mu­sic in Com­po­si­tion with an em­pha­sis in Or­ches­tral Con­duct­ing. Twice, he was the guest con­duc­tor at the an­nu­al per­for­mance of Mes­si­ah at the West Point Cha­pel, fea­tur­ing a com­bined com­mu­ni­ty cho­rus of 300 sing­ers with pro­fes­sion­al or­ches­tra.

In 1980, Mat­thews ac­cept­ed the post of Or­gan­ist-Mu­sic Di­rect­or of Cal­va­ry Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Wil­low Grove, Penn­syl­van­ia. In 2005, he ac­cept­ed the call of Pas­tor of Wor­ship Arts at Church of the Sav­iour in Wayne, Penn­syl­van­ia, where he was pre­sid­ing as of 2008. From 1982–92, he was the Chair of the De­part­ment of Mu­sic at Phi­la­del­phia Bib­li­cal Uni­ver­si­ty (now Cairn Uni­ver­si­ty).

Since 1992, Mat­thews has been Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic and Dir­ec­tor of Mu­sic Pro­grams at East­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the Chair of the Fine and Per­form­ing Arts Di­vi­sion and Chair of the Mu­sic De­part­ment. In ad­di­tion to his uni­ver­si­ty and church posts, he con­ducts the Ju­bi­la­te Deo Cho­rale and Or­ches­tra of New Jer­sey, a 75-voice au­di­tion­ed cho­rale and a 65-piece pro­fes­sion­al or­ches­tra, per­form­ing sac­red and clas­sic­al cho­ral and or­ches­tral mu­sic. He is a com­mis­sioned and pub­lished com­pos­er, and is ac­tive in coach­ing, ac­com­pa­ny­ing and cham­ber mu­sic.

Matthews was a Tho­mas F. Sta­ley Foun­da­tion lec­tur­er/ar­tist, and serves on sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al and de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards and task forc­es. He pe­rforms reg­u­lar­ly with his bro­ther, Rev. Dr. Ga­ry Mat­thews, in conc­erts and work­shops through­out the Unit­ed States and Ca­na­da. They have re­leased six re­cord­ings of his­tor­ic and con­tem­po­ra­ry church mu­sic.

Matthews holds Choir Mas­ter and Col­league cer­ti­fi­ca­tions with the Am­er­ican Guild of Or­gan­ists and comp­leted a four-year fa­cul­ty de­vel­op­ment grant for jazz stu­dy. He is list­ed in num­er­ous in­te­rna­tion­al and na­tion­al civ­ic and pro­fess­ion­al Who’s Who pub­li­ca­tions.

Music