Local composer is '˜one to watch'

Lisburn composer Matthew Whiteside has won the One To Watch category at the Sunday Herald Culture Awards 2017.

Presented by Pauline Miller Judd, Dean of Arts & Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University, at SWG3 in Glasgow on July 17, this award is the culmination of a busy year for Matthew.

“It is great to be nominated and absolutely amazing to be One To Watch presented in front of a room filled with such creative talent,” said Matthew.

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In the past twelve months six new works by Matthew have been premièred by performers including the RTÉ NSO in Dublin, Juice Vocal Ensemble, Glasgow Chapel Choir, Cappella Nova, Emma Lloyd, Carla Rees and Joanna Nicholson in venues ranging from Dublin’s National Concert Hall, to Stirling Castle, L’Klectik Art Lab in London and The Hug and Pint in Glasgow.

He has also released Piece for Violin and Bass Clarinet performed by Emma Lloyd and Joanna Nicholson and composed the score for David Graham Scott’s documentary The End of the Game.

Alongside his compositional work Matthew continues to programme The Night With…, a concert series putting interesting music into informal venues, which this year contained six world premières over eight concerts in The Hug and Pint, The Fruitmarket Gallery and The Caves with performances by Red Note Ensemble, Tom Poulson, Timothy Cooper, Danielle Price, the Aurea Quartet and Abby Hayward.

Looking ahead Matthew’s Nobilis Humilis will be performed by Cappella Nova as part of the Made in Scotland Showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe August 23 to August 25, he is finishing writing Little Black Lies a new short opera commissioned by Scottish Opera Connect with a libretto by Helene Grøn which will be performed in 2018, he has been commissioned by the Northern Ireland Science Festival to write a new string for the 2018 festival and he is working with Magnetic North and Marisa Zanotti to develop a transmedia installation.

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Matthew has always had a passion for music since childhood and fiarst took to the stage performing a chamber opera in Belfast in 2009, as part of Spark Opera’s first project, Bridge Sparks.

Since then he’s moved to Glasgow and finished a Masters in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland but he has never forgotten his Lisburn roots and loves to come back to Northern Ireland as often as he can,

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