Norman Mathews is a composer of art songs, musical theatre, opera, choral works, cabaret, as well as instrumental and symphonic works
His art songs were featured, along with the works of John Kander, Charles Strouse, and Galt MacDermot, at the Kennedy Center by The Other Side of Broadway, That program was broadcast live on the Kennedy Center website.
His opera, La Lupa, inspired by the Giovanni Verga novella, was showcased at Ft. Worth Opera’s Frontiers program. Mathews wrote both the score and the libretto.
Sonnet No. 61, his choral setting of Shakespeare, was a winner of the American Composers Forum VocalEssence Award in Minneapolis, where the work was conducted by Philip Brunelle.
Rossetti Songs, for soprano, piano, flute, and cello, was released by Navona Records (and distributed by Naxos Records) on a CD entitled Rapport. The work was broadcast on Public Radio. A piano/vocal version of that work was performed at the Source Songs Festival in Minneapolis.
His song cycle, Songs of the Poet, composed to Walt Whitman poetry, was premiered in Germany by Munich Opera tenor Gregory Wiest. Wiest, with pianist Oresta Cybriwsky, recorded the piece on a CD entitled Time Marches On for Capstone Records (CPS 8646).
The work has been performed extensively by such performers as soprano Tracy Bidleman, baritone Paul Hindemith, and tenor Chuck Chandler. Selections from Songs of the Poet were performed at The American Composers Orchestra’s Whitman and Music program. The final song, The Last Invocation, received the Recognition of Excellence award at the Diana Barnhart American Art Song Competition
Mathews’ one-woman musical play about Dorothy Parker, You Might as Well Live, has benn performed by Tony-Award-winner Michele Pawk and Broadway star Karen Mason.
The show has appeared at a sold-out performance at the 1,500-seat Harris Theatre of Music and Dance as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. It has been seen at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, the York Theatre in New York City, and at Chicago’s Stages 2003: Festival of New Musicals.
The play, for which Mathews wrote both the book and music, received a grant from The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. It was also a finalist for the Stanley Drama Award and the Mill Mountain Playhouse Best Play Competition.
Somebody Write Me a Song, a musical revue by Mathews and lyricist/collaborator Patty Seyburn, was performed on the Arts and Artists Series at the Donnell Library in New York City. The program featured Tony Award winner Debbie Gravitte, Tony-nominee Liz Callaway, and Peter Samuel, with Dick Gallagher as musical director.
Mathews wrote both the score and the book for Lost Empires, a musical based on the J.B. Priestley novel. Patty Seyburn was the lyricist.
A starry demo of the musical featured Michele Pawk, John Dossett, Brynn O’Malley, and Danny Gurwin. The musical was given a concert performance at Shorter University.
Ye Are Many—They Are Few: Cantata for a Just World, for four singers and piano, was given its world premiere by Vox3 at the Chicago Cultural Center. The text is centered on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s, The Mask of Anarchy, with additional text by Mathews and other writers.
Mathews’ String Quartet was performed and recorded by members of Access Contemporary Music at the Chicago
Mathews was composer-in-residence at Shorter University, where he wass commissioned to write a major work, Flights of the Heart, for the faculty. an entire evening of his compositions was presented in concert by both students and faculty.
Drone, his play on the horrors of drone warfare, was performed at Dayton Playhouse’s FutureFest. It is also the first-place winner of the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest.
Matthews is also an author. His autobiography, The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater was published by Eburn Press. It has earned numerous awards and extensive critical acclaim. It can be purchased at Amazon.
He has also written articles for Common Dreams, and the Times of Sicily, Theatre Art Life, and Metrosource.
Mathews began his career as a dancer-actor-singer. He appeared on Broadway and in major motion pictures.
After a back injury, Mr. Mathews returned to school and earned a B.A. Degree in music from Hunter College, where he was the recipient of the Geraldine Saltzberg Memorial Prize for Scholastic Excellence, the Irene Steinman Memorial Award, and the Roosevelt Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Study. He completed an M.A. Degree in music from New York University.
He studied classical piano with John Ranck of the Mannes School of Music and jazz piano with Harold Danko at the Manhattan School of Music. He studied composition and orchestration with Richard Danielpour, Richard Hundley, and Charles Turner.
In the 1980s, Mathews was part of a classical piano duo, which performed extensively throughout the country.
Mathews has also worked as news editor for Dance Magazine and managing editor of Sylvia Porter’s Personal Finance Magazine. He is a current a member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, American Composers Forum, Access Contemporary Music, and is listed in Who’s Who in America. He is also listed on the Classical Composers Database.