Matthew grew up on a sheep property in Central West NSW Australia. His initial musical training didn’t begin till the relatively late age of 10, starting originally as a percussionist before moving on to piano. Matthew made up for lost time through hard work in his teenage years and completed his AmusA after 6 years of piano lessons. Matthew was also awarded the most senior music scholarship of the Mitchell Conservatorium at Bathurst.
Matthew moved to Sydney to continue his studies in piano and composition at the Institute of Music under Nikolai Sokolov, later transferring to the piano performance program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music studying under Phillip Shovk. Matthew graduated from the piano performance degree with the award of the best senior piano recital for the year.
Matthew pursued a successful teaching career and has been the Director of Music at PLC Armidale from 2016 to the present day.
It was only in 2015 that Matthew shifted his professional and artistic focus to composition and to this end studied with Dan Walker from 2015 through to 2019. In this late “second career” he has made a very promising start with several published choral works with Orpheus Music, Middle C Music, Singscore and the Wirrapang community of Australian composers. He has achieved promising success in several competitions including second place in the Golden Key International Piano Competition and Second place in the National Orpheus Music Competition. Matthew took leave for 18 months in 2021 and 2022 to study his Masters of Music in composition at the University of Queensland with Robert Davidson where he graduated with high distinction.