Matt Poon

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Pianist and composer MATT POON advocates and promotes music of our time by performing, creating, researching, and improvising. His dedication has granted him awards including first prize and prize for best performance of commissioned work in the Eckhardt-Gramatté Canadian National Competition (Canada Council for the Arts Prize), first prize in the American String Quartet Composition Competition, and first prize in the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra Open Call for Works. Matt is a recipient of Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council grants. He was listed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC/Radio-Canada) as one of the “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30 in 2016”.

As a laureate of the Eckhardt-Gramatté Canadian National Competition, Matt performed a 10-city concert tour across Canada and a debut concert in Italy promoting contemporary piano music, including his own composition and repertoire with extended techniques written by living Canadian and International composers. Matt performed in multimedia productions, as a midi-keyboard-player/theatre-performer for Hong Kong Exile (Vancouver-based interdisciplinary arts company) touring across Canada (including the Banff Centre for the Arts), Europe (including Gaudeamus Muziekweek in the Netherlands and Sonica Festival in Glasgow), and in Hong Kong (Tai Kwun), and as a pianist-improviser for Volcano Theatre (Toronto-based performance company) in Montreal and Edmonton. As a former member of the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Music Ensemble (Tactus) and the University of Toronto Contemporary Music Ensemble, Matt premiered chamber works by Hong Kong and American composers at the first Manhattan-Hong Kong festival, and performed chamber works by established Canadian and International composers. Matt was featured in part of the “Young Artist Overture” series by Soundstreams Canada, and as a composer-performer at the Stone in New York City and the Integral House in Toronto.

Matt holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance and a Master of Music in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto. He also holds a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music UK (LRSM) and an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music Toronto (ARCT).

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