Matthew Lomax is a Sunderland-born contemporary classical and electroacoustic composer based in London. His music is noted for balancing fragile, unsettled timbres and melodic lines with sudden, dramatic shifts between densely layered and stark textures. Often inspired by field recordings and images that capture everyday life, his music finds states of disconnect and separation in these moments; exploring the boundaries between noise & silence, density & space, motion & stillness. Many compositions respond and incorporate other artistic mediums such as architecture, sculpture, speech and movement.

Matthew has written for ensembles across the UK including The Cats Cradle Collective, Prism Ensemble and No Dice Collective, as well as collaborated on works with painters, video artists, photographers, dancers and spoken-word poets. In 2020, the audio-visual installation Through Fractured Mirrors was commissioned by the Royal College of Music to feature in the newly-developed RCM Museum building, co-created with Connor D’Netto.

The work B|O|R|D|E|R|S for guitars and electronics was selected for performance in the National Portrait Gallery as a response to photography finalists of the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2017. The following year, Drowning in the Din… for bass clarinet, bass guitar and electronics was performed on a number of occasions in response to the Royal Academy of Arts’ collection of John Constable sketches in their permanent exhibition space. In 2019, Matthew collaborated with dancers and choreographers from the Central School of Ballet to create Non-place Ballet for chamber ensemble and electronics as part of the RCM Great Exhibitionist Series, alongside co-composer Connor D’Netto and the Cats Cradle Collective. Matthew was honoured to be selected to compose How The Great News Was Received for string quartet and harp as part of the RCM’s World War I centenary concert.

Matthew is a recent alumnus of the Royal College of Music, having studied composition with Haris Kittos and electroacoustic composition with Michael Oliva as a Clifton Parker award holder and previously as an RCM award holder supported by a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds scholarship. During his initial studies in composition close to home at the Sage Gateshead’s Centre for Advanced Training, and through the exploration of computer-based composition at the University of Manchester, Matthew developed a musical language that incorporates the physicality and sonic qualities of natural phenomena, visual arts, and architecture to create a tactile musical experience.