- Winter Gardens by Michael Kropf (DMA '22)
Winter Gardens by Michael Kropf (DMA '22)
Matt Albert, violin // Forrest Howell, piano
Matt Albert
Chair of Chamber Music and Associate Professor of Music
Bio
Called “preposterously talented” by Time Out Chicago, violinist and violist Matt Albert (he/him) is the Chair of Chamber Music at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan. He previously served as the Director of Chamber Music and SYZYGY at the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, and he was a founding member of Eighth Blackbird, with whom he received numerous awards, including first prizes at the Naumburg, Concert Artists Guild, Coleman, and Fischoff Competitions, and three Grammy awards for their recordings on Cedille Records. He has collaborated with Alarm Will Sound, Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble, Seraphic Fire, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and Wilco, and his orchestral playing has included work with the Shreveport Symphony (as Concertmaster), the Baltimore Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, and a tenured position as Principal Second Violin of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. He has served as a lead mentor for the Banff Centre for the Arts’ Evofest Evolution: Classical and for Nick Photinos’s 1:2:1 online workshop. Other leadership roles include three years as the Artistic Director of the M-Prize International Chamber Arts Competition and three years as the Artistic Director of the Music in the Mountains Conservatory in Durango, Colorado. Matt holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University School of Music.
photo credit rr jones
Selected Works
- Shostakovich String Quartets 7, 8 & 9 [producer], Navona Records (2017)
- Meanwhile, Eighth Blackbird, Cedille Records (2012) (Grammy winner)
- Trembling Air, Eighth Blackbird, Bridge Records (2012)
- Lonely Motel: Music from Slide, Eighth Blackbird, Cedille (2011) (Grammy winner)
- Jennifer Higdon: On a Wire, Eighth Blackbird with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, ASO Media (2011)
- Double Sextet/2×5, Eighth Blackbird, Nonesuch (2010)
- strange imaginary animals, Eighth Blackbird, Cedille (2006) (Grammy winner)
Selected Performance
Updated on: 8/14/2024