PUBLIC BENEFIT CONCERT BIOGRAPHIES

BRANDON MATTHEWS, Professor of Music, Orchestra

Brandon Matthews serves as Director of Orchestras and Professor of Music at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He was recently appointed to become Chair of the Music Department beginning in August 2023. In addition to teaching conducting and leading the University’s orchestral ensembles, Dr. Matthews works as a music director for MSU Denver’s Music Theatre Department and Opera Ensemble. He is also an active adjudicator and clinician for competitions and honor orchestras, and regularly collaborates with orchestras and arts organizations in Colorado such as the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra, Arapahoe Philharmonic, Longmont Dance Theatre, the Boulder Symphony, and the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted orchestral ensembles in Michigan, Texas, Utah, Washington, as well as Germany (Berlin). In the 2022-2023 season Dr. Matthews will guest conduct the Littleton Symphony as well as the Aurora Symphony Orchestra.

Matthews obtained a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting at Arizona State University, studying with Timothy Russell and William Reber. While at ASU, he was co-music director of the ASU Sinfonietta and served as an assistant conductor for the ASU Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. He also conducted operatic and musical theatre performances in the ASU Lyric Opera Theatre. In 2015, Dr. Matthews was invited to Germany to work with Kenneth Kiesler and conduct the Berlin Sinfonietta in an international conducting workshop. Matthews also received a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting at Brigham Young University under the direction of Kory Katseanes. Other conducting mentors include Kenneth Kiesler, Harold Farberman, Ronald Staheli, and Larry Rachleff.

Raised in Spokane, Washington, he began his musical studies as a pianist and later took up the viola in the public school system. Matthews’s musical training continued during summers spent at the Brevard Music Center and the Marrowstone Summer Festival. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance at BYU, and continues to perform on piano, viola as well as the violin.

Dr. Matthews resides in Denver with his wife, Meghan, and their four children.

PHIL FISCOR, Assistant Professor of Music, Strings

Philip Ficsor has released four recordings which have been aired in the US on WGBH, WNYC and KUSC among others. He has been featured as a performer across the US and Europe, notably in Prague CZ, Budapest, St. Petersburg, Russia, Ghent, Belgium as well as performances at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Michigan, and the International Horn Society (2018). A recent recording of two worldpremieres on Naxos feature his performance of Bolcom’s Second Suite for Solo Violin and Bolcom’s Horn Trio. Gramophone described his playing as “impressive” and the horn trio recording as “splendidly intense and involving.” He received his DMA in violin performance from Boston University, his MM from Yale University, and his BA from the University of Michigan. He is an editorial advisor for publication through E.B. Marks/ Hal Leonard Corporation for Bolcom’s works for violin and piano. He directs the mariachi