Matthew Mason

Matt A. Mason is a pianist, composer, educator, and technologist from Lincoln, Illinois currently serving on the faculty of Roosevelt University in Chicago as an Assistant Professor of Musicianship. Matt's music has been described as "brooding, tense" and "brimming with constellations of pitch, rhythm, and harmony in a densely complex mesh." Their music is motivated by their rural, midwestern background, telling stories about queer visibility, social and environmental responsibility, and approaching music as a community-driven artform dependent on inclusion. Matt's current work deals with concepts of embodied performance and narrative. Recent works include Things that Drift Ashore, a piano concerto in which the body of the piano is explored as an allegory for social responsibility and the pollution of our oceans. Matt also has an ongoing collaboration with filmmaker and choreographer, Christina Hughes. Their work Un-Contained, which sets the weaving, interconnectedness of four independent bodies against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness, was an official selection for Rethink Dance Film Festival, the 2025 Performing Media Festival, Floor Films Festival, the 2025 Alabama ScreenDance Festival, and the Artists for Hope International Dance Film Festival. Matt has worked with ensembles such as Ensemble Dal Niente, the JACK Quartet, Hypercube Ensemble, LIGAMENT, Flannau Duo, Random Access Music, The Center for New Music. They were the 2024 Commissioned Composer by the Illinois Music Teachers' Association and they currently serve as the artistic director of the New Third Space Ensemble. In their spare time, Matt researches the intersection of Hip Hop and Gender Studies, hosts a successful horror movie podcast called "Watch No Evil," and teaches community music lessons and workshops. 

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