John Matthias

John Matthias is an award winning musician, singer  and composer. In 2008, he won the PRS Foundation New Music Award (the musical equivalent of ‘The Turner Prize’) for the development of a huge sonic installation entitled The Fragmented Orchestra (with Jane Grant and Nick Ryan), which also won an award at the Prix Ars Electronica 2009. He has released three albums, Smalltown, Shining (2001)on the Accidental label, Stories from the Watercooler (2008)on the Ninja Tune/ Counter label and Cortical Songs (2008)(with Nick Ryan), a work for string orchestra and solo violin which includes remixes by Thom Yorke, Simon Tong, Jem Finer and many others, on the Nonclassical record label. He has worked with many recording artists including Radiohead (The Bends), Matthew Herbert and Coldcut and performed extensively including at the Wordless Music Series in New York, The  Pompidou Centre in Paris and at the Union Chapel in London.He has worked on the scores of several film projects including The Hamburg Cell (Dir. Antonia Bird), Three Degrees Colder (Dir. Florian Hoffmeister) and recently co-scored the straight 8 film ‘Out of Time’ (Dir. Duncan Wellaway) which was a winner at the Cannes International Film Festival 2009. He is the deputy director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the University of Plymouth, UK and is currently developing new instruments and compositional processes relating to sonic events and spiking neurons. These initiatives include orchestral composition, distributed systems and the development of a new Neuronal Music Technology.