Matthew Tommasini is a composer, arts administrator, and educator.
He is based in New York where he serves as Director, Very Young Composers & Community Programs at the New York Philharmonic.
HKUST Reading Session of Tell Me… with music director Alexander Liebreich and Munich Chamber Orchestra
He is the recipient of the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, and grants from the ASCAP Foundation's Leonard Bernstein Fund and the American Music Center's Composer Assistance Program.
He has been commissioned by the Milwaukee Ballet, New York Youth Symphony, and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings/Oberlin Conservatory/University of Michigan Consortium.
His orchestral works have been performed at the Munich Chamber Orchestra HKUST Reading Sessions, the Underwood Reading Sessions of the American Composers Orchestra, and at the Riverside Reading Sessions of the Riverside Symphony, and by the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, and New York Youth Symphony.
Nina Bernstein at RTHK Radio 4 studios recording Remembering Leonard Bernstein
Tommasini’s chamber works have been performed by members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Stoltzman, Mivos Quartet, Daedalus Quartet, Parker Quartet, Antares, and featured at the New York Festival of Song, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Classix Kempten Festival.
His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Detroit Free Press, and Boston Music Intelligencer, and South China Morning Post, and featured on Radio Television Hong Kong.
Previously, he was Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Prior to that, he was Associate Artistic Director of the Intimacy of Creativity contemporary music festival in Hong Kong, and the HKUST Music Alive! concert series, and Associate Professor of Humanities Practice in Music Education at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) where he coordinated an innovative music and creative arts program. He served on the Shaw Auditorium Project Board overseeing design and implementation of a new 850-seat multipurpose concert hall development on the campus of HKUST.
Recording Remembering Leonard Bernstein, a 4-part radio program produced for RTHK Radio 4
He also previously served as English Presenter for Radio Television Hong Kong Radio 4 as for live concerts presented by Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, and Hong Kong Sinfonietta. In 2018, he presented and produced a 4-part series celebrating the Bernstein centennial. Remembering Leonard Bernstein featured guests Nina Bernstein, Jaap van Zweden, Bright Sheng, Michael Barrett, and David Gockley.
Tommasini holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan (DMA, MA) where he studied with Bright Sheng, William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, and Leslie Bassett; and UCLA (BA) where he studied with Paul Chihara and Ian Krouse.
He is a member of ASCAP.
Photo credit: Erik Tanner