Bio: (shorter bio and photos below)
Matt McBane is a composer, electronic musician and violinist whose music draws on classical minimalism and studio production techniques; analog synthesizers and fiddle music; orchestras and found percussion; complex patterns and emotional nuance. He has been described as “a natural composer, a fresh voice” by the Los Angeles Times and praised for his “unpredictable and utterly charming musical inventions” by Bloomberg News.
Matt’s latest album, ‘Buoy’ (Gradient Music, February 2025) is a solo project of patterns and ambiance for synthesizers and violin. It is his first primarily electronic album and first entirely solo album on which he plays a variety of analog synthesizers (modular and fixed), violin, piano and bass guitar, and manipulates it all in his computer. This project grew out of a performance in Brooklyn in 2020 on a concert curated by Laurie Anderson and Arto Lindsay.
Matt’s most recent large-scale project, is the diptych of “Bathymetry’ and ‘Topography.’ ‘Bathymetry,’ is a composition for percussion and analog synthesizer with Sandbox Percussion (2022 Grammy nominees) in 2022 on Cantaloupe Music. ‘Bathymetry’ was selected as an album of the month on Bandcamp, and an album of the year by the band Wilco, and called “an electro-acoustic tour de force” by Steve Smith. ‘Topography’ is an album-length septet for cellist Ashley Bathgate, Mantra Percussion and analog synthesizer, premiered in December 2023 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, featured in The New York Times, and co-presented and broadcast by WNYC’s New Sounds. ‘Topography’ will be recorded in 2025.
Matt’s percussion music has been performed around the world by ensembles including So Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Mantra Percussion, and dozens of US university percussion ensembles. In recent seasons, the Hong Kong-based Toolbox Percussion has toured China with McBane’s ‘For Triangles’ and the Rome-based Blow-Up Percussion has toured Italy with his ‘Bathymetry.’
In addition, Matt’s music was featured in the 2022 Hulu/BBC show ‘Conversations with Friends.’ And, his 25-min suite for bluegrass string band, ‘Drawn’ was released on the Jake Schepps Quintet's album ‘Entwined’ which was called a 2015 album of the year by Colorado Public Radio.
Matt’s instrumental band, Build, released two albums on New Amsterdam Records and has been described by New York Magazine as a “rocking post-classical quintet which takes inspiration from minimalist chamber music, instrumental rock, modal jazz, and more.” Matt was the Founder and Artistic Director of the Carlsbad Music Festival from 2003-2021, widely known for its programming of “adventurous music by the beach” for which he was called, “a first-rate organizer with a broad range of musical interests” by Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times. He holds degrees from Princeton University and the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
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Shorter bio:
Matt McBane is a composer, electronic musician and violinist whose music draws on classical minimalism and studio production techniques; analog synthesizers and fiddle music; orchestras and found percussion; complex patterns and emotional nuance. His latest album, ‘Buoy’ (Gradient Music, February 2025) is a solo project of patterns and ambiance for synthesizers and violin.
Matt’s previous album, ‘Bathymetry’ (Cantaloupe Music, 2022) is a large-scale composition for percussion and analog synthesizer with Sandbox Percussion (2022 Grammy nominees). ‘Bathymetry’ was selected as an album of the month on Bandcamp, an album of the year by the band Wilco, and was called “an electroacoustic tour de force” by Steve Smth in Night After Night. The companion to ‘Bathymetry,’ ‘Topography’ is an album-length septet for cellist Ashley Bathgate, Mantra Percussion and analog synthesizer, premiered in December 2023 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, featured in The New York Times, and co-presented and broadcast by WNYC’s New Sounds.
Matt’s band, Build, released two albums on New Amsterdam Records and has been described by New York Magazine as a “rocking post-classical quintet which takes inspiration from minimalist chamber music, instrumental rock, modal jazz, and more.” Matt was the Founder and Artistic Director of the Carlsbad Music Festival from 2003-2021. In addition, McBane’s music was featured in the 2022 Hulu/BBC show ‘Conversations with Friends.’ He holds degrees from Princeton University and the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
Click photos below for hi res publicity photos.
Photo credit Tommy McAdams
