Barley, Matthew

Language, Matter into Imagination

http://www.matthewbarley.com/

Matthew Barley's musical world has virtually no geographical, social or stylistic boundaries. After training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Moscow Conservatoire, Matthew's activities in performance, cross-disciplinary projects, composition, and pioneering community programmes soon developed to form a uniquely eclectic international career.

Matthew made an early London concerto debut playing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto in the Barbican Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, as finalist of the LSO-Shell Competition. Within a year he had been invited to play as guest principal cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta Orchestras. Since then his solo and chamber music engagements have taken him to most European countries, North America, the Middle East, India and the Far East and Australia and NZ, performing repertoire ranging from Bach to his own compositions, music written for him and improvisation.

Matthew's recent concerto engagements have included the London Sinfonietta, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Marin Alsop), Brno Philharmonic, Hong Kong Sinfonietta. New Zealand Symphony (Tan Dun), Buenos Aires Philharmonic and Athens Camerata. Recent festival appearances include Lucerne, New Zealand, City of London, Prague Autumn, Hong Kong, Harrogate, Lichfield, Salisbury, Cheltenham, Dijon, Taranaki (New Zealand) and Koshigaya (Japan) and the WOMAD festivals in Australia and New Zealand. Matthew's passion for new music has led him to premiere works by John Woolrich, Dimitri Smirnov, Carl Vine, Detlev Glanert, Peter Wiegold, Fraser Trainer, and Katsuhiro Tsubono and a work for solo cello by Deidre Gribben. He has also commissioned several works, including music for cello and electronics, which along with improvisation, is one of Matthew's special interests in this domain. His concerts, especially when he plays new music, are presented with talks about the works and often involve audience participation.

Matthew Barley's non-classical collaborations include Django Bates, jazz pianists Julian Joseph and Nikki Yeoh (London Jazz Festival), appearing in venues ranging from Ronnie Scotts to the South Bank Centre. Matthew also masterminded a major project for violinist Viktoria Mullova, Through the Looking Glass, in which he was one of the lead performers. The project was performed in a 27-concert worldwide tour, and the recording, produced by Matthew, was released by Philips Classics in 2000. Matthew's most recent collaboration is with star Indian sarod player Amjad Ali Khan, with whom he has appeared in duo recitals at London's Royal Festival Hall (2000 and 2002), at the 2003 WOMAD Festivals in Adelaide (Australia) and New Zealand, as well as on tour in India. Recent performances have been at the St Denis Festival in Paris (also with Talvin Singh), and in India, and at WOMAD UK. Further world music collaborations have been with Ross Daly (Cretan Lyra), Bob Brozman (Californian/Hawaian slide guitar) Grace Nono (Filipino folk singer), Cara Dillon and Andy White (Irish folk singers), Julien Jacob (African singer) and Ernest Ranglin (Jamaican jazz guitar legend and mentor for Bob Marley).