MATTHEW GRIFFITH ACTING ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

The Kathryn Powell and Green Flavie Cooper Chair

Matthew Griffith has performed as guest soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ocean City Pops, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, United States Army Field Band, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, and more. In 2014 Yale University published “The Algorithm of Jazz,” a video following his experience performing Artie Shaw’s concerto with the Yale Symphony Orchestra.

Prior to his role as Acting Assistant Principal Clarinet with the North Carolina Symphony, Griffith was an active member and Concerto Competition winner in The Orchestra Now, an ensemble based in New York’s Hudson Valley. In 2017, he appeared as Acting Assistant Principal Clarinet of the Nashville Symphony, and he has also performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the New World Symphony.

Griffith graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) with a master’s degree in music in 2016 and a graduate diploma in 2018, having earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 2014 with distinction in both majors (music and computer science). At NEC he received the 2017 Borromeo Quartet’s Guest Artist Award and was a Teaching Fellow in the Community Performances and Partnerships program. He was also a member of the Amici Wind Quintet, which was selected as a 2016/17 Honors Ensemble at NEC. His teachers have included Michael Wayne, David Shifrin, Todd Levy, and Dr. Jill Hanes.

A Tanglewood Music Center fellow in 2016 and 2017, Griffith received the Gino B. Cioffi Memorial Prize in 2017 and returned as a New Fromm Player in 2019. He has also attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and National Orchestral Institute + Festival, among other summer programs. He grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and in his spare time he enjoys writing computer code and designing videogames.