Matt Recio

Teaches: Piano

Recio recently finished his post as the Vanguard emerging composer with Chicago Opera Theater, developing operas with Royce Vavrek and Stephanie Fleischmann. He recently recieved a commission for his new opera “L’autre Moi: The Other Me” to be produced in 2025 with West Edge Opera, featuring libretti by Stephanie Fleischmann. As an educator he serves as adjunct faculty of Musical Skills for DePaul University and the Chicago School for the Arts and has previously served on faculty as theory instructor at Indiana University and composition faculty at the Luzerne Music Center. As a guest artist and lecturer he has been invited to work at Oberlin Conservatory, Cleveland State, Ithaca College and Stony Brook University.  Current projects include a commission from Chicago Fringe Opera for the Decameron Opera Coalition, a commission for LYNX amplify series, and a commission for Ryan Strand’s Letters for Jackie project, and a commission from the Ithaca College Treble Choir. Recent past projects include a commission for Chicago based professional choir, Stare at the Sun’s Fall concert “Returning”, and a commission for Queer In(n) dedicated to Chicago elder trans icon, Mama Gloria, featuring trans singer, Jalissa Spell, Chicago Fringe Opera’s City of Works series, Fourth Coast Ensemble’s SongSlam and wrote an interactive choral cantata “The Hollow” for Stare at the Sun. He was a winner of the IU Georgina Joshi Vocal Composition prize, the American Prize in choral writing and the first selected commissioned artist for the Cincinnati Song Initiative. Recio has worked with organizations such as BMP, New Voices Opera Company, Cincinnati Camerata, NOTUS and The Crossing. He was a composer fellow at VIPA, IMANI Festival, Atlantic music festival, The Crossing and Norfolk Chamber Series. He studied voice and piano during his academic training, studying voice under Peter Volpe and actively performs as a choral singer today in the Chicago area.

Recio is a G. Schirmer published artist under the Craig Hella Johnson and Dale Warland series.  He is a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music where he was a Jacobs Fellowship recipient for his DM and MM in composition. www.matthewrecio.com