Biography

Matthew A.C. Cohen is a composer, orchestrator and arranger, born in Merrick, New York in 1989. He holds a B.S. in Music Composition and Theory from Hofstra University — with a focus on film scoring, arranging and jazz saxophone — and an M.F.A. in Music Composition for Media from Columbia College Chicago.

It started with a guitar at thirteen, in a run of bands with friends that moved from ska to indie and alternative. Songwriting arrived the same year: his sister, a classically trained opera singer, asked him to write music for her songs. The two recorded several of them and worked with a manager to get the material heard.

By high school he had committed to music full time, and jazz had taken hold. At sixteen he began studying with saxophonist and composer Andy Middleton; when Middleton left a few months later to teach music theory at the Vienna School of Music, he passed Matthew on to Jeff Newell. The bulk of those high school years went to Newell, largely on improvisation and repertoire.

Choosing a degree meant choosing between jazz studies and composition, and he wanted both. Composition won on the logic that it left room for everything else: he could write constantly and keep practicing. At Hofstra he studied improvisation and classical saxophone with Alejandro Aviles, and composition with Dr. Matthew Van Brink and Prof. Herb Deutsch before doing the bulk of his work with Dr. Kenneth Lampl.

Film scoring turned out to be the answer. He scored anything he could get his hands on — film, television, video games — while staying planted in the jazz scene, writing combo and big band charts and arrangements for ensembles large and small. Alongside his own films, he has worked with high profile composers on studio features, triple A game titles and critically acclaimed television.

He is always looking for new films to score. Commissions are always welcome.