Matthew Ricketts (composer)

Matthew Ricketts (born 1986) is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music. He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow[1] as well as the recipient of the 2020 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2016 Jacob Druckman Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, the 2015 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award, a 2013 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and eight prizes in the SOCAN Foundation's Awards for Young Composers. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Matthew Ricketts
Birth nameMatthew Jonathan Ricketts
Born (1986-01-15) January 15, 1986
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
GenresContemporary classical
Occupation(s)Composer
Instrumentspiano
Years active2007–present
Websitewww.matthewricketts.com

Biography

Matthew Ricketts was born in Victoria, British Columbia. He attended McGill University’s Schulich School of Music,[2] where he studied composition with Chris Harman, Brian Cherney, and John Rea. He earned a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University, where he studied with George Lewis and Fred Lerdahl. He is currently a Core Lecturer at Columbia.[3]

Ricketts's music has been performed by the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, as well as by ensembles and soloists including JACK Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, the Chiara String Quartet, FLUX Quartet, soprano Tony Arnold, and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM). He was Composer-Collaborator-In-Residence at East Carolina University from 2016 to 2018.[4]

In May 2017, the opening of Ricketts’s Highest Light, a Montreal Symphony Orchestra commission, was performed by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet aboard the International Space Station,[5] in a live broadcast during the world premiere performance in Montreal.[6]

Ricketts's chamber opera Chaakapesh: The Trickster's Quest, with a libretto in Cree by Indigenous Canadian playwright Tomson Highway, premiered in September 2018 as the opening of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's 85th season,[7] and was followed by a tour of indigneous communities in Northern Quebec.[8] The tour was documented in the 2019 film Chaakapesh.[9]

Other works

Ricketts is also active as a writer, librettist, and poet. His operatic collaboration with composer Thierry Tidrow, Less Truth More Telling, was produced in 2013 by the Dutch National Opera and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.[10]

Selected works

Orchestral
  • Halo (2019) for two trombones and orchestra
  • Méloscuro (2018) for piano and orchestra
  • Blood Line (2017) for orchestra
  • Melodia (2017) for piano and orchestra
  • Flat Line (2016) version for orchestra

Chamber
  • Ember (2019) for string quartet
  • Melodia (2016-2017) for piano solo
  • Highest Light (2016) for organ solo
  • In Partial View (2015) for string quartet
  • Flat Line (2014) for chamber ensemble of 15 players
  • Enclosed Position (2014) for alto flute, clarinet, string trio and piano
  • After Nine (2014) revised version for chamber ensemble
  • Winter Line (2013) for chamber ensemble of 14 players
  • Burrowed Time (2012) for chamber ensemble of 15 musicians
  • Still Burning (2011) for bassoon, bass trio, percussion and piano
  • Trio (2011) for clarinet, viola and piano
  • Graffiti Songs (2010) for flute, violin, cello and piano
  • Double Concerto (2007) for flute, clarinet and chamber ensemble

Vocal
  • Chaakapesh: The Trickster's Quest (2018) opera in three scenes for orchestra, two singers and narrator
  • Unset (2017) for soprano and chamber ensemble
  • Fälscherlieder (2016) for six voices and four instruments
  • Song Cycle (2015) for soprano and chamber ensemble
  • Swallow Songs (2014) for high soprano and piano
  • Women Well Met (2013) for vocal sextet
  • No Masque for Good Measure (2012) opera in three acts for four voices and four instruments

Selected awards and grants

References
  1. "Matthew Ricketts". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  2. "Graduate Matthew Ricketts is among this year's recipients of the 2013 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award". McGill University News and Events. McGill University. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  3. "Matthew Ricketts, Core Lecturer, Music Humanities". The Department of Music. Columbia University in the City of New York. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
  4. "North Carolina New Music Initiative". ECU School of Music. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  5. "International Space Station news - 2017". Canadian Space Agency. Government of Canada. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  6. "Organ and Space: Gaze Up To The Heavens". Orchestra Symphonique de Montreal.
  7. MacLellan, Ainslie. "Montreal symphony teams up with Inuit, Cree & Innu artists to launch new opera". CBC News. CBC. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  8. Handke, Sebastian. "Tshinashkumitin!". Lufthansa Magazin. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  9. Chris Knight, "Chaakapesh celebrates creation and performance of a Cree opera". National Post, January 30, 2020.
  10. "Four Short Operas". The Hague Online. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  11. https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2020-music-award-winners/
  12. "Seven Emerging Composers Chosen for 2019 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute". Minnesota Orchestra. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  13. "Fellows of the 2018 Tanglewood Music Center". Tanglewood Music Center. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  14. "The Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Past Winners". University of Massachusetts Boston. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  15. "8th Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize". Mivos Quartet. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  16. Travers, Andrew. "Aspen Music Festival announces 'enchanted' 2017 summer season". The Aspen Times. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  17. "Salvatore Martirano Award". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  18. "The ASCAP Foundation Names Recipients of the 2013 Morton Gould Young Composers Awards". The ASCAP Foundation. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
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