WHO IS MATTHEW CMIEL?

Matthew Cmiel is a composer, conductor, guitarist and enthusiastic advocate of new music and young performers. He is the director of the John Adams Young Composers Program, the founder and co-director of the new music ensemble After Everything, and was a founder and co-director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Hot Air Music Festival, and Formerly Known As Classical, a new music ensemble entirely made up of and run by teenagers. He also served as Director of Orchestras at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.

Matthew has been a featured composer at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and  composer-in-residence at  the Banff  Centre. His compositions have been performed by the Berkeley Symphony, Marin Alsop, and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Composers Inc., the Del Sol String Quartet, the Mobius Trio, the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and  the San Francisco Saxophone Quartet. His compositions have won prizes from ASCAP,  the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society, the National Federation of Music Clubs, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Pacific Musical Society and the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra and he was nominated for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts Award administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

Matthew is also an accomplished guitarist, who has won prizes for his playing from the American String Teachers Association and Downbeat Magazine, from whom he also received a special award for his work as founder and organizer of Formerly Known As Classical, a new music ensemble made up entirely of and organized completely by teens. The ensemble specialized in playing music written in the performers' own lifetimes, creating what they believe to be new classics, as well as advocating for youth.

As a conductor, Matthew has worked extensively with Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier, and Edwin Cutwater, and has worked with and conducted numerous ensembles and youth groups, including: the Cabrillo Festival Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Preparatory Division Chamber Orchestra, Hot Air Festival Orchestra, and San Francisco School of the Arts Orchestra.

Matthew is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, and The Crowden School. His primary teachers have been: John Adams, Alexis Alrich, Dan Becker,  Scott Cmiel, Jennifer Higdon, Otto Werner Mueller, Edwin Outwater, Belinda Reynolds, David Tanenbaum, and Benjamin Verdery, and he has worked extensively with Marin Alsop, Antigoni Goni, David Lang, and Gustav Meier.