Short Bio
NJ composer and musician Matthew H Schwarz started his music career performing in original rock bands on guitar, flute, and vocals, and then added Celtic harp and traditional folk music to his career. He later took private composition lessons, writing a string quartet and arranging some of his rock works for the Castle Rock Orchestra in Colorado. Schwarz used a work benefit as a University of Colorado groundskeeper to take music classes and earn a Master's Degree in Music Theory, using this to get into a graduate composition program at Montclair University. He currently focuses on composing classical music utilizing his rock and folk background, while maintaining a parallel career as a traveling folk harpist. In both genres he aims to make music that is vibrant and engaging while feeling connected to tradition.
LONG BIO
Matthew H Schwarz started out as a rock guitarist, with his progressive-metal band Sleepy Hollow's album Legend described as an ‶ambitious, eclectic masterpiece″ by Brian Watson of the Dutch Progressive Rock Pages. While Schwarz previously strove to bring some of the sophistication of classical music to his rock writing, he now utilizes this rock background to compose classical music that is ‶approachable . . . for classically trained musicians, metalheads, and a general listening audience alike″ (Brutal New Music). Meanwhile, he maintains a parallel career performing centuries-old traditional music as a folk harpist.
Schwarz's orchestral works (Aristotle's Lantern, Taliesyn Overture, and the Finale from his Symphony in D Minor) have been premiered by the Castle Rock Orchestra in Colorado. His chamber works Mermaid Song and The Naiad have been premiered in London by flutist Victoria Heath and harpist Anna Cameli, while his guitar quintet Dungeons of Danger has been performed by Oren Fader's guitar ensembles at Montclair University in NJ and Purchase College in NY. His First StringQuartet was recorded in 2019 by the Carpe Diem String Quartet, and his Second String Quartet in 2022 by the Kodak Quartet.
As a rock musician, Schwarz recorded 3 releases with his Lodi, NJ-based progressive metal band Sleepy Hollow, contributing songwriting, guitar, flute, and vocals to the The Soundhouse EP (2000), Goin' Over (2003), and the double-album Legend (2010). Schwarz also worked with Colorado progressive metal band Sold Future's (contributing to the album Stages of Collapse of 2022) and performed with Denver rock band Odin's Other Eye and Jethro Tull tribute band Cold Wind To Valhalla.
Matthew played harp and second violin in the Castle Rock Orchestra for four years, as well as various side projects by orchestra leader Matt Rose (including the Castle Musicale early music group and the CRO Celts) at churches, civic events, retirement homes, and on multiple recordings. His session work on harp ranges from film soundtrack (the 2018 film Gathering of Heroes: Legend of the Seven Swords) to working with the extreme metal group Stormkeep (on the track ‶Ode to Dragons″ from their 2021 album Tales of Othertime).
Schwarz released his guitar-vocal based folk album The Lost Way in 2003, featuring a mix of original songs and traditional British folk songs. His solo harp album The Journeyman Harper followed in 2008, focusing on instrumental Irish traditional and early music. His folk career started on guitar, flute, mandolin, dulcimer, and recorder but eventually focused on harp (instrumentals and traditional songs). He has performed for ten years at Renaissance Faires, including the Colorado Renaissance Faire and over 20 Renaissance festivals in the east coast and northeast U.S.A., from Virginia to Maine. He has also performed his folk music (solo and with various ensembles) at bookstores, cafes, weddings, charity events, botanic gardens, etc.
Like many rock musicians, Schwarz started out self-taught: playing many years as a guitarist, flutist, and vocalist, influenced by his love of bands such as Iron Maiden and Jethro Tull. He added harp, recorder, mandolin, and mountain dulcimer when he took up folk performance. He also taught himself piano, cello, pipe organ, and violin and enjoyed playing Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, and other classical music for his own enjoyment, and this music influenced his rock writing (and his penchant for adding harmony flutes to heavy metal songs). Even in his rock songwriting, Schwarz liked to write elaborate music and work out arrangements, which made it an obvious next step to classical composition – moving from playing classically-influenced rock to writing rock-influenced classical. His formal music education came later in life. He first took private composition lessons, then got a job as a groundskeeper at the University of Colorado so he could use a work benefit to take music classes. He eventually earned a Master's Degree in Music Theory there, which he followed up with a Master's in Composition Montclair University. He gives adult-school lectures on classical music history.
He has studied composition with Greg Simon, Tyler Harrison, Mike Barnett, Egemen Kesikli, Paul Salerni, Tyler Rubin, and Patrick Burns. He has also studied voice with Dari Franks, flute with Wendy Stern and Alice Jones, harp with Andre Tarantiles, and viola da gamba with Ann Marie Morgan and Roland Hutchinson.
Composer manifesto
Classical music that rocks!
The century of the internet has a right to its own music (to paraphrase Claude Debussy)! The music that inspires me – whether it is Beethoven or Iron Maiden – rewards focused listening and study, but can also be enjoyed by the casual listener. Music that is attention-grabbing rather than attention-requiring.
Rather than continuing the modernist classical tradition of the past century or trying to write in the style of the century before that, I utilize my background as a rock and folk musician to update the classical music of the 18th-19th centuries, much as the jazz-influenced composers of the last century did. I focus on the techniques that work for traditional classical and rock music alike: propulsive rhythms, bold motives, clear melodies, repetition and clear phrases, and pleasing harmonies and instrumental timbres. Like the great classic prog rock artists, I prefer to take elements from various genres (folk, heavy metal, traditional classical, modernist classical) and try to create something that sound fresh and new while also giving a feeling of familiarity and connection to the past.
New music composers often complain of audiences not "making the effort" to appreciate their music, but I try to "make the effort" as a composer. I write the type of music I myself enjoy listening to: music to move the heart and body and to inspire the listener.
TEACHING
Schwarz loves to share his knowledge of classical music. He is particularly experienced in giving lectures to general audiences, creating his lectures to be both understandable to the novice and informative to the experienced.
He has given surveys of the history of the European classical tradition from Medieval to Modern, a lecture on how to tell Baroque from Classical from Romantic, and lectures on more focused topics such as Accessible 20th Century Composers, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and Beethoven's Symphonies.
Here's some feedback from his adult school lectures:
“I’ve learned a lot from him. He explains things so well and makes it interesting. I was engrossed the entire two hours of each session.”
“The teacher had a real command of the material and put in a lot of work in splicing the samples of so many composers. He is knowledgeable and approachable. Very engaging.”
“He is very knowledgeable and really prepares - it is obvious he wants to share his knowledge.”