NORTH BEND – Michael Matlock is sure he was not born in the wrong century.
But after meeting the 17-year-old composer, you have to wonder if he wouldn’t have been happier plying the streets of Vienna with the likes of Beethoven.
The home-schooled North Bend student recently finished composing a string quartet, which will be performed by members of the Seattle Symphony next week. Matlock was selected to participate in this year’s 12-week Seattle Symphony Young Composers Workshop, which began in January. The workshop culminates in a recital April 25 in which all nine pre-college workshop participants will have their compositions performed by Seattle Symphony musicians.
Matlock composed “String Quartet No. 1” during the workshop, which focused on the development of chamber music, from writing themes to preparation of a final score.
Now anticipating his debut as a composer, Matlock’s music career has come a long way from taking his first piano lesson six years ago from “Mrs. Haley down the street.” Matlock now studies at the Academy of Music Northwest in Seattle.
“I knew I wanted to devote my life to music in some way a couple years ago,” said the high-school junior, who claims to have perfect pitch. “It’s very helpful in composing if you can hear [the notes] in your head.” Matlock put his first composition to paper last August, but has been hearing melodies in his head for some time.
Matlock’s 12-minute quartet includes three movements, with the first and third having faster tempos than the second. Matlock began working on the quartet in February and finished it about a week and a half ago, just before the deadline.
“I’ve always had the melody in my head, I just didn’t have it written down,” he said.
This musical clairvoyance is just one of many traits Matlock seems to share with professional composers; another is his ability to make an emotional connection with what’s on the page.
“Music is an extension of what you feel, but not every piece is this soul searching epic,” Matlock said. “Sometimes you see performers hunched over the piano with their eyes closed – they’re feeling it. There’s a lot of piano players out there, but not many who really feel it.
It’s more entertaining to be emotional, but you have to control it. You can get people to like something even if it’s a piece they hated before.”
He said his biggest influences are Beethoven, Bach and Chopin. “It’s hard to pick one, there’s so many who have influenced me in terms of composing, but they are at the top.”
Matlock’s favorite era in music is the Romantic to Impressionist period of the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Matlock is not impressed by most modern composers, though he said Bartok and Shernberg are favorites from a more recent era. “Classical gets too rigid, modern is hard to understand and even when I do understand it, I don’t always like it.”
Matlock hopes to go onto college to study composition, but is having a hard time finding a school with a composition program. He hopes to become a professional composer and he seems to already understand the frugal lifestyle artists must endure, something he’s willing to take on.
“As long as I can make a living,” Matlock said. “If I could make more than that it would be really great. If I can make it as a composer I can do other things, too.”
To say Matlock comes from a musical family is an understatement. Most of the space in his house has been taken over by musical instruments. His mother sings, his brother plays drums and his father plays piano. The family also gets involved with community theater.
Matlock’s mother and teacher, Tina, said her son has the uncanny ability to concentrate on two things at once.
“We’ll be doing a history lesson and while I’m reading, he’s composing,” she said. “I don’t know how he hears the history and the music at the same time, but he does.”
The Seattle Symphony concert featuring the music of all nine young composers is free and will be held at 8 p.m. Monday, April 25, in the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle.
