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Matthew Davidson |
 Biography |
Matthew Davidson (b. 1964, Toronto, Canada; now resident Montreal, Canada) holds degrees from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, the University of Toronto, Canada, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Apart from concertizing in Canada, New Zealand and the United States, with ragtime, early jazz, “classical” and contemporary music concerts, he actively promotes the work of other composers (both as performer and impresario) and his work has received radio broadcasts in New Zealand, North America and Europe. Dr. Davidson studied piano privately with John Powell and Rae de Lisle in New Zealand (through whom a lineage may be traced to Franz Liszt), with Bruce Greenfield and Phillipa Ward at the Wellington Polytechnical Institute’s Executant Music Course in New Zealand, privately with Lawrence Pitchko and Harold Heap in Canada and with William Heiles at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the U.S.
As a composer, his works encompass almost every medium, including book, music and lyrics for two musical comedies, chamber music, improvisatory works, theatre pieces, electronic and orchestral music. Davidson is the recipient of commissions and awards from Victoria Universitry, the Queen Elizabeth II (New Zealand national) arts council, the American (formerly Minnesota) Composers’ Forum, the University of Illinois, Meet the Composer/California, The Elgin Cultural Arts Commission, and has been associated wit the New York piano virtuoso of twentieth century music, Anthony De Mare and with the Kronos Quartet. He has studied theory with Alexander Rapoport at the Royal Conservatory of Music (through whom a lineage may be traced to the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna) and his principal composition teachers have been Jack Body in New Zealand, John Beckwith in Canada (through whom a lineage may be traced to Nadia Boulanger) and Salvatore Martirano in the United States.
His music is published by Honeyrock Publications in Everett, Pennsylvania and the Composers Association of New Zealand. His unpublished works are distributed by the New Zealand Music Center and the Bibliotheque Internationale de Musique Contemporaine in Paris, France. His complete works are held in archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library division of the New Zealand National Library. He has previously recorded for Stomp Off Records, Capstone Records and the Mastersound label.
Critical praise for Davidson has come from such diverse sources as Gramophone Magazine (”…a remarkably talented pianist…as a performer Davidson has few peers…”), to Steve O’Keefe in Cadence Magazine (”…this disk by…Matthew Davidson is extraordinary.”), to Jack Rummel in The Rag Times (“With his trademark leaps from pianissimo to fortissimo and his seemingly effortless mastery of all 88 keys, no other ragtime performer today explores the full range of the piano, both dynamically and geographically, as he does. He is a true virtuoso, and his feats of skill will amaze you.”), to recording artist for Vanguard, Epic, New World Records and Omega Classics, Max Morath (”…his [Davidson’s] stunning premier performances…mark…this pianist for landmark status and accolades – adjectives for which one reaches for the Thesaurus: prodigious, consummate, mighty. Well – sublime.”). Of his latest album, ”Talencourt”, www.hbdirect.com said: ”He has…achieved a fine reputation as a concert pianist…and…his chamber music experience has given him exceptional insight into the workings of solo and chamber string music.”
May 2008
