Sound and Music

Mat martin is an active and engaged freelance musician / visual artist based in manchester and working full time in composing for all kinds of spaces, in performing, and in mark-making. he has become very involved with the fertile ground between music and the visual arts as a way of exploring the interfaces between the natural world and the processes involved in making work. Mat has written music for several performers, including works for rhodri davies and christopher cundy, which have been performed around the uk and in the united states. his graphic score pebble music (for any solo performer) has been performed several times throughout europe and has cemented his interest and involvement in the improvised music scene. both fire dances and pebble music were composed on commission for rhodri davies’ series of ‘constellations’ concerts which have featured works from composers as diverse as michael parsons, laurence crane, katherine kontz and mieko shiomi.  Mat has studied composition and visual art to doctoral level under edward cowie and alexander goehr at dartington college of arts, and also holds a degree in music technology. his doctoral research has resulted in the development of a highly individual musical language which draws from his sketches and fieldwork in the natural sciences. all of his work draws in some way on an observed connection with processes in the natural world, and many of his recent pieces have used open scoring and semi-improvised techniques to further this interest. new pieces such as ‘single stone’ for contrabass with optional piano accompaniment and ‘shadow musics’ for guitar quartet (which was selected for the spnm shortlist in 2007) show the integration of these techniques as an important strand in the culmination of his musical interests to date. www.myspace.com/matmartinmusic