Matthew Taylor

Beginning in August of 2018, Dr. Matthew Taylor will serve as Assistant Professor of Music – Saxophone at the University of Central Arkansas. He returns to his alma mater following five years on the faculty at Morehead State University, where he also serves as the Music Program Coordinator. His multifaceted performance career has taken him all over the world to work with Grammy, Tony, Emmy and Oscar award winning artists. As a soloist, he is an advocate for living composers, and is responsible for many commissions and over 50 world premieres within the past 10 years alone. When he is not on stage, Matt is most fulfilled spending time with students–teaching, giving masterclasses, coaching student ensembles, and participating in residencies in public high schools and at universities.

He is a strong believer in the transformative power of music education. Prior to accepting his first professorship, he developed and implemented a music curriculum for at-risk kids in downtown Miami, Florida, where he taught students about Boulez, Steve Reich, and Mozart, and they taught him about Celia Cruz, Drake, and V.I.C.

Matthew earned his doctorate in instrumental performance with a cognate in jazz studies from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he was a fellow of the Henry Mancini Institute. His master’s degree is from the University of Maryland, and he holds a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Central Arkansas, where he was a scholar in the Schedler Honors College. He also completed study in saxophone and Contemporary Chamber Music at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Bordeaux in Southwestern France. His principal teachers have included Dale Underwood, Marie-Bernadette Charrier, and Jackie Lamar (saxophone); Whit Sidener, Gary Keller, Troy Roberts, and Curt Sipe (jazz), and Gary Green, Michael Hancock and Ricky Brooks (conducting).

Matthew is an artist/clinician for the Conn Selmer Corporation, and performs exclusively on Selmer Paris saxophones. For more information, please visit his website at www.matthew-taylor.co.