Matthew Hindson - Biography

Biography

Matthew Hindson was born in Wollongong, New South Wales in 1968. He studied composition at the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne with composers including Peter Sculthorpe, Eric Gross, Brenton Broadstock and Ross Edwards.

Hindson's works have been performed by ensembles and orchestras throughout his native Australia, including most of its professional symphony orchestras and chamber groups. Overseas, his compositions have been presented in New Zealand, Germany, France, Austria, the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Canada and Thailand, and have been featured at such key events as the 1994 and 2000 Gaudeamus Music Weeks in Amsterdam, the 1997 ISCM Festival in Copenhagen and the 1998 Paris Composers Rostrum.

His music often displays influences of popular music styles within a classical music context, and, as a result, musical elements such as driving repeated rhythms and high dynamic levels are typically found in his works. Indeed, directness and immediacy are common features in much of his music. One of his most notable works, Speed (1996), was thought by some to be inspired by the 1994 hit film Speed; however, Hindson has denied this connection.

In 1999 Hindson was the attached composer to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Works written during this attachment include Boom-Box and In Memoriam: Amplified Cello Concerto (the latter was subsequently nominated for an APRA-AMC award for Best Orchestral Work of 2001). He was also the attached composer with the Sydney Youth Orchestra in the same year, for which he was commissioned to write a violin concerto. In 2002 he was the featured composer with Musica Viva Australia for which he has written a number of new commissions for Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, baroque violinist Andrew Manze, the Australian oboist Diana Doherty and the Belcea String Quartet, and Duo Sol.

In May 2002, the Sydney Dance Company toured Australia to much acclaim with a new 90-minute production, Ellipse, choreographed by their Artistic Director, Graeme Murphy, and danced entirely to Hindson's music. Playing to packed houses, it broke box-office records for the SDC. They toured it to the USA in 2004.

In September 2003, Hindson was a featured composer at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Wales, during which fourteen of his works were performed by a variety of ensembles. He was the attached composer to The Queensland Orchestra in 2003/2004, one result of which was his Percussion Concerto, written for Dame Evelyn Glennie and premiered in Brisbane in 2006. In addition, his music was set to a full-evening dance presentation by Ballett Schindowski in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in January 2004.

Other compositions include two works for the Orchestras of Australia Network, a flute concerto entitled House Music for American flautist Marina Piccinini, premiered with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in December 2006, a Concerto for Two Pianos written for Pascal and Ami Rogé, and two ballets commissioned by Birmingham Royal Ballet for David Bintley. Matthew Hindson's music is published by Faber Music (UK). A disc of three of his orchestral pieces was recorded by Trust Records with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and released in August 2008.

As well as working as a composer, Hindson lectures in the Arts Music Unit and is Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He has recently co-authored a book entitled "Music Composition Toolbox", published by Science Press. Hindson is the artistic director of the Aurora Festival, a new festival of contemporary music based in Western Sydney which premiered in April 2006.