Matthew Tirona, composer

Matthew Tirona is a Boston-based composer whose catalog spans from intimate chamber and choral music to grandiose orchestral works and ambient electronica. Informed by the landscapes and cityscapes around him, his music takes inspiration from rolling hills, the seasons, bodies of water, bustling transportation, and architectural forms. Matthew’s music has been featured across the United States, in cities such as Boston (MA), New York (NY), Pittsburgh (PA), Iowa City (IA), Memphis (TN), and Chattanooga (TN). 

Collaborators include the New England Conservatory Philharmonia and Wind Ensemble, the Midwest Graduate Music Consortium (as winner of the MGMC 2024 Call For Scores), Vox Novus, and the b# chamber trio, among frequent art-song collaborations with his operatic peers. In 2024, Matthew was named winner of the NEC Honors Ensemble Composition Competition, in which a commissioned work for piano trio was premiered at the Trio Tyche Honors Recital in Jordan Hall. Recently, the same work was awarded first prize in the 2025 Belvedere Chamber Music Festival Composition Contest, selected among 98 entries from 18 countries. 

Also an accomplished chorister, Matthew sings in the NEC Chamber Singers (under Erica Washburn) and the First Baptist Church of Boston choir. He previously sang in the New England premiere/world premiere of the new edition of Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D with Cappella Clausura and in the chorus of Sibelius’s only opera, Jungfrun i tornet (American Premiere) with conductor Joseph Bozich.

Matthew is enrolled in the Tufts University/New England Conservatory Dual-Degree Program, regarded as “one of the most selective and intensive programs of its kind,” studying with Michael Gandolfi. As a musician of Filipino descent, Matthew hopes to be an advocate for diversity in composition, a field in which Filipinos are heavily underrepresented. Matthew is affiliated with the performance-rights organization American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).