"The work of Matthew Davidson is written with intelligence
and attention to detail." - Musifax, Quebec. Belated birthday wishes to Canadian composer Matthew Davidson, who celebrated his 48th birthday on March 10th this year. Davidson is currently completing work on a new chamber opera called
THE SINGING LESSON based on three short stories by Katherine Mansfield. He holds degrees from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, the
University of Toronto, Canada, and the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. Apart from concertizing in Canada,
New Zealand and the United States, with ragtime, early jazz,
classical and contemporary music concerts, he actively promotes the work of
other composers (both as performer and impresario) and his work has received
radio broadcasts in New Zealand,
North America and Europe.
Dr. Davidson studied piano privately with John Powell
and Rae de Lisle in New Zealand (through whom a lineage may be traced to Franz
Liszt), with Bruce Greenfield and Phillipa Ward at the Wellington Polytechnical
Institutes Executant Music Course in New Zealand, privately with Lawrence
Pitchko and Harold Heap in Canada and with William Heiles at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States.
Video: Rudolf Haken performs Davidson's dazzling Magyar Rondo on a five-string viola pomposa.