Thank you for coming back for another episode of the Composer Happy Hour. My guest for episode 11 is Matthew Lyon Hazzard. Matt and I had previously only met in passing - he remembers this a bit more clearly than I do - but it was at a bar in Kansas City where I was sitting at a table of other choral conductors enthusiastically discussing the merits of a solo we had just heard in a performance. Needless to say, I am happy to finally have a proper conversation with him. Matt is a writing some really wonderful stuff - rhythmically vibrant, and filled with lush soundscapes. He is also, I have a discovered, a very kind and genuine guy. Our conversation covers craft cocktails, driving through the dessert, and books about sword-fighting rodents (seriously).
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Matthew Lyon Hazzard (b. 1989) is an award-winning Filipino-American composer, conductor, singer, and educator.
Praised for his “exquisite text-setting” and for creating “stunning landscapes of sound” (18th Street Singers), Hazzard’s music has garnered numerous accolades. In 2011, he became a prize winner in the Vancouver Chamber Choir Young Composers Competition, and won the North Carolina Master Chorale Composition Competition shortly after. In 2014, he was awarded the William and Eleanor Greatbatch Endowed Choral Composition Prize from Houghton College, and became a featured composer at Denison University’s TUTTI Festival. These early successes led to a series of honors: Hazzard was awarded the grand prize in the 18th Street Singers 10th Anniversary Composition Competition, second prize in the 2016 International Choral Composition Competition Japan, named PREMIERE|Project composer for the Choral Arts Initiative, and won the 2016 Arrowhead Chorale Choral Composition Competition. In 2017, he won the ACDA Raymond W. Brock Student Composition Competition, and became the inaugural winner of the Stephen Paulus Emerging Composer Composition Competition by GRAMMY-nominated ensemble, True Concord. His music is increasingly performed by collegiate and professional ensembles around the world, including the Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, KC VITAs, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, and others.
Hazzard earned his M.M. in Choral Conducting with honors from the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach, and his M.A.T. and B.M. in Music Composition from East Carolina University. Prior to pursuing his M.M., Hazzard taught at Greene Central High School (NC) for four years where his choirs flourished underneath his leadership. His ensembles received consistent superior ratings, and won the 2015 Busch Gardens Music Sweepstakes Award for Best High School Choral performance; an honor that recognizes the strongest performing ensemble across the entire season. In 2016, his choirs were invited to perform on the stage of Carnegie Hall, where they premiered Ivo Antognini’s A Prayer for Mother Earth under the direction of Andrew Crane.
During his studies at California State University Long Beach, Hazzard directed the Bel Canto treble ensemble, and served as assistant conductor to the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, conducting both ensembles at regional festivals. He received the 2018 University Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity, and the 2019 Distinguished Achievement in Creative Activity Award from the CSULB College of the Arts for his work as a composer and conductor. He is now pursuing his D.M.A. Choral Conducting at the University of Houston Moores School of Music, where he conducts the University Women’s Chorus and continues to write for voices.
All Recordings Used By Permission of the Composer:
"There is No Sea" (2018)
i. The Prow
ii. The Ocean Between Us
iii. So Much To Seek
CSULB Bob Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir
"Flight" (2020
Portland State Chamber Choir
This episode is sponsored by Four Fires Meadery