Matthew Ricketts (BMus ’09) receives 2019 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
We are pleased to share that alumnus and composer Matthew Ricketts (BMus ’09) has been awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship! Intended for individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts, the prestigious fellowship provides fellows condition-free funding to work on their creative projects.
A Canadian composer based currently in New York City, Matthew holds degrees from the Schulich School of Music (BMus) and Columbia University (DMA). His music engages with text-music relationships and toys with moving between extremes of presence and absence and clamor and quietude. Matthew’s works have been performed by internationally renowned ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and more. His multi-lingual opera Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest opened the Orchestra symphonique de Montréal’s 84thseason to great acclaim and was toured to Indigenous communities throughout Quebec. Matthew is the recipient of several fellowships from the MacDowell Colony (2019), the Tanglewood Music Center (2018 Elliott Carter Memorial Fellowship), and the Aspen Music Festival (2017). He has also won several prizes including the SOCAN Foundation’s Awards for Young Composers, a 2013 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the 2015 Salvatore Martiarano Memorial Composition Award, and more.
Upon receiving the award, Matthew writes, “I'm honoured to be a 2019 Guggenheim Foundation fellow. This generous fellowship is a remarkable opportunity to take time to focus on several composition projects. It is hugely validating as an artist to receive this kind of support.”
