My Life in Church Music: Matthew Martin
Huw Morgan
An interview with Matthew Martin
Matthew Martin is a composer, organist and choral conductor, and is currently Precentor and Director of Music at Gonville & Caius College Cambridge. He has been commissioned by, amongst others, the choirs of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, The Tallis Scholars, The Gabrieli Consort, and The Sixteen, and won the Liturgical category in the 2013 British Composer Awards. Matthew spoke to Huw Morgan, OR’s Deputy Editor, before Christmas.
HM: Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Organists’ Review! I believe we first met as students when you were Organ Scholar at Magdalen College Oxford?
MM: Yes, this was in 1994, and you were next door at St Edmund Hall. I remember that we tried going for runs together in the morning – that lasted all of a week!
HM: That was terrible! I think we were more accomplished at meeting for a last-orders pint at the Eastgate Hotel… You arrived at Magdalen from Dean Close school in Cheltenham. Was that where you began to learn the organ?
MM: Yes, I was at Dean Close for a long time, and learnt the organ there, but I also learnt the organ at Christ Church, a big church near the centre of Cheltenham not far from the school – with a big four-manual (rebuilt) Hunter organ! This is actually where I got the most important early organ tuition: when I arrived at Dean Close as a twelve year old, I think I was probably quite musical and good at playing by ear, but was useless at playing scales and other technical work so they told me I wasn’t really suited to playing the organ. They did eventually allow me to have some lessons, but they weren’t very challenging.
