Matthew Armbruster is an avid performer, educator, and concert producer in Austin, TX. Matthew is a member of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, holding the Steven A. & Nancy H. Wilson Cello II Chair, and the Austin Ballet. Matthew is a sought out performer in the local Austin music scene, performing concerts with Texas Performing Arts, The Butler School of Music, The Blanton Museum, Austin Camerata, Density 512, and Tetractys New Music.
Matthew is highly passionate about performing and curating new and contemporary music and has been responsible for commissioning over 30 composers as the co-founder and former director of Tetractys New Music. Matthew was a member of the Penderecki Academy Orchestra as principal cellist, where he collaborated closely with renowned composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki. He was previously a member of the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, where he was featured as a soloist in the second performance of Mark Volkert’s Pandora along with principal members of the San Francisco Symphony. He performed the Texas premiere of Bryce Dessner’s Triptych in collaboration with the Grammy award-winning ensemble, Roomful of Teeth. Matthew is currently a member of the newly formed ensemble SoundMap, a collective dedicated to performance of exclusively living composers, that will make its debut across the United States and Mexico in 2024.
As an educator, Matthew has worked as a teaching artist with the Austin Symphony, and has developed multiple curricula that integrate composition and concert curation with analysis and close listening of music relating to oppression and overcoming adversity. He has also served as a performance mentor to young composers, working with Golden Hornet’s Young Composers Program and students from Austin High School. Matthew maintains a small private studio in central Austin.
Matthew holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His previous cello teachers have included Bion Tsang, Amos Yang, Anthony Elliott, Janos Starker, and John Kaboff, and he has studied chamber music extensively with the Miro Quartet, Anton Nel, and Christoper Harding.
In his free time, Matthew enjoys distance running and discovering new breweries