Colin Matthews

Colin Matthews (born in London in 1946) is one of Britain’s most distinguished living composers, OBE, noted above all for his large-scale orchestral music. He read classics at Nottingham University before studying composition there with Arnold Whittall and privately with Nicholas Maw, and took a doctorate on Mahler at the University of Sussex. From 1964 to 1975 he worked alongside his brother David Matthews and the musicologist Deryck Cooke on the celebrated performing version of Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony, and he has long been involved with the Britten Estate and the Holst Foundation. A prolific arranger as well as composer (his orchestrations of Debussy’s Préludes are widely played), he served as the LSO’s Associate Composer from 1992 to 1999 and later held the same post with the Hallé. He is Prince Consort Professor at the Royal College of Music and the founder of the contemporary-music label NMC. His music combines a rigorous craftsmanship with a strong sense of colour, drama and line.