Bio

Matthew is currently Director of the Salzburg Institute for Advanced Studies, a newly established public-facing education and research hub that leverages Salzburg's numerous cultural resources within a global context.

Educated at Magdalen College (University of Oxford) and in Philadelphia, Matthew's research focuses on festival and opera studies, cultural diplomacy, global music history, modern dance, Austrian literature, as well as the politics of musical life in Central Europe between c. 1750 and 1960. 

His latest book, Wegzeichen Neue Musik (Vienna, 2025), co-edited with Thomas Hochradner, brings together 17 leading experts (from Alabama to Australia) who critically discern how Salzburg's contemporary music scene became a catalyst for peace and intercultural dialogue between the First and Second World Wars.

As a public-facing author and communicator, Matthew has spoken at the Vienna State Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Musiktage Mondsee (Austria), Salzburger Landestheater, and Academy Travel (Sydney), as well as delivered radio talks for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, ORF Salzburg and Ö1's "Klassik Treffpunkt" (a live format reaching a quarter of a million listeners).

With a passion for making his research accessible to a wider audience, Matthew has curated several ground-breaking local and international touring exhibitions receiving more than 20,000 visitors. He has also published articles in the Salzburger Nachrichten and written programme notes for the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Monnaie, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Salzburg Festival, and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, for whom he writes regularly.

Musically, Matthew gained formative experience as a percussionist, which included new-music premieres, recordings, and concerts, as well as invitations to tour abroad from such figures as King Hussein of Jordan and jointly Nania Yeltsin and Hilary Clinton. He also has extensive performing experience in choral conducting and as a baritone (from liturgical chant to contemporary music). As a percussionst, he has performed in venues such as the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), Brno Philharmonic Hall (Besední dům), F. Liszt Conservatory (Budapest), the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow), Jerash Festival (Jordan), Ruldofinum (Prague), and Stadthalle Bayreuth (Bavaria); as a baritone, he has sung in settings such as Westminster Abbey, Princeton University Chapel, Magdalen College Chapel, Saint-Louis Cathedral of Les Invalides, Notre Dame, and Saint-Sulpice.

In addition to degrees in music performance, historical musicology, and theology, Matthew also studied piano with the last full-time student of the Kiev-born pedagogue Rosina Lhévinne (Julliard) and organ with one of Marie-Madeleine Durflé's protégés. Combining scholarship with praxis, he has occasionally worked in opera production and festival administration alongside figures such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Karoline Gruber, and others.

Matthew began teaching undergraduates at the age of 21 and has since taught extensively at universities in the USA (Philadelphia), UK (Cambridge & Norwich), and Austria, where he has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Salzburg and, more recently, at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, where he held the post of Senior Lecturer. He has also been awarded several research fellowships in Germany (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria).

Matthew co-organised the first academic conference in the UK on Richard Strauss (2007), which drew delegates from as far and wide as Hong Kong, Texas, and Israel, and has organised several interdisciplinary conferences in Germany and Austria. He regularly serves on conference committees and as an international referee for peer-reviewed journals, publishers, grant-funding bodies, and university-degree assessments. His research has been supported by major grants from Austrian and German foundations, including the DAAD, as well as by smaller American, Australian, and British funding organisations.

Since 2017, he has served as co-editor of the peer-reviewed Richard Strauss-Jahrbuch and General Secretary of the International Richard Strauss Society (est. 1952). In 2023, the Salzburg Festival appointed him to the Academic Advisory Board of its newly reconstituted historical Archive.

Alongside his professional interests, Matthew enjoys travel, photography, coffee, and is an avid skier, cyclist, and mountaineer. During his Oxford years, he played grass-court tennis and rowed in Magdalen College Boat Club's Men's 1st VIII, winning the prestigious "Head of the River" title in the 2007 Summer Eights boat race.