Matt Malsky
Professor, Visual and Performing Arts
Tina Sweeney, M.A. '49, Endowed Chair in Music
Director of MCA, Visual and Performing Arts
Director of Higgins School for the Humanities
Scholarly Interests
Music composition, film sound/music, music technology
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Matt Malsky has been at Clark University full time since 1994. He has served as Associate Provost and Dean of the College, and chair of the Department of Visual & Performing Arts, director of the Music Program as well as the interdisciplinary Communication & Culture program, and two terms as the George N. & Selma U. Jeppson Professor of Music. Since 2014, he has organized the Geller Jazz series on campus, which has featured outstanding performances by Ron Carter with Billy Cobham, Ravi Coltrane with Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Trio da Paz, Christian MacBride, Joe Liebman, Bill Charlap with Jon Faddis, Donald Harrison, and many others. He is currently the director of the Higgins School of Humanities, director of the interdisciplinary Media Culture, & the Arts program, and Tina Sweeney, M.A. ’49, Endowed Chair in Music.
Malsky is a composer whose music has been performed and acclaimed internationally. His compositional style is characterized by its rhythmic vitality and dramatically crafted gestures, and has been described as economical, eloquent, intellectually rigorous, and emotional compelling. His virtuosic works for acoustic instruments with live computer processing have attracted the interest of outstanding soloists including John Bruce Yeh (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Esther Lamneck (NYU), Frank Cox (c-squared), Seth Josel and Isabel Ettenauer. The Penderecki String Quartet commissioned his second string quartet, Lacan. His third quartet, Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is an accompaniment to that classic silent film. Together with his first string quartet, these have been released on compact disc through the Centaur label. His recent chamber music, an aural map of varied emotions, is available on Ravello Records as GEOGRAPHIES & GEOMETRIES with the Radius Ensemble and the Worcester Chamber Music Society. His music for silent film may be heard here. His first chamber opera, "A Dill Pickle," was based on a short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was premiered by the Worcester Chamber Music Society at the JMAC/Brickbox Theater in Worcester, MA and featured performances by Caitlin Felsman (mezzo-soprano) and Cailin Marcel Manson (baritone). A livestream of the premiere can be viewed here. Two current chamber opera projects - both based on historical figures - are "Language of Origin," a staged dialogue between jazz musician Ornette Coleman and philosopher Jacque Derrida; and "Leave Your Dignity At The Door," set in the Chicago bohemian "Dil Pickle Club" in 1919 with Ben Reitman (the "hobo doctor"), poets Lola Ridge and Emanuel Caraveli, and composer/pianist Henry Cowell.
Malsky studied composition with Conrad Pope and Harold Shapero as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He holds the Ph.D. in music composition from The University of Chicago where he studied with Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran and Howard Sandroff. His work has been recognized with awards and grants from ASCAP, Brandeis University, Kurt Weill Gesellschaft, the Hillery Family Charitable Trust, NSF/Chicago Materials Research Center, Hultgren Solo Cello Works Biennial, American Composer's Forum, and others.
As a scholar, his research examines from a psychoanalytic perspective the intersections of music, technology and culture in the post-World War II period. His articles are published in the areas of ethnomusicology, cultural and film studies by the Illinois and Wesleyan University Presses, Palgrave Macmillan, Bloomsbury Publishing, and journals Search, Reconstructions and World Picture Journal.
Courses Offered:
HS 100: Symposium Seminar
MCA 101: Introduction to the Theory, History & Analysis of Media
MCA 180: Podcasting - technique & story
MCA 290: MediaNOW!
MUSC 103: Post-Music
MUSC 125: Musical Acoustics
MUSC 201: Music, Media & Public Spheres
MUSC 235: Community Music and Social Action
MUSC 242: Soundtracks
MUSC 270: Senior Tutorial in Computer MusicDegrees
- Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1990
- B.A., Brandeis University, 1983
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Gilbreth Time-and-Motion Study #1
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2023
Magnetic Flux Music
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Call To Post
brass quintet
Mechanics Hall
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Worcester MA
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The Tides That Bind
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2022
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The Participants
incidental music for a multi-media theatrical work
Clark University
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Razzo Hall
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"A Dill Pickle"
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2022
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A Dill Pickle
JMAC Brickbox
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Public Performance - "A Dill Pickle," a chamber opera
Mezzo-soprano, Baritone & string trio
BrickBox Theater @ JMAC & livestreamed
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Worcester, MA
Oct. 10, 2021
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Leave Your Dignity Outside
May
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2021
self
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ensemble mise-en concert (livestreamed)
"Heterogeneous" for toy piano with live computer processing
MISE-EN_PLACE
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Brooklyn, NY
Aug. 6, 2020
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Reading Session - Chamber Opera, "A Dill Pickle"
Mezzo-Soprano, Baritone & String Trio
Trinity Lutheran Church
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Worcester, MA
Oct. 9, 2020
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Concert Hall Acoustics and Urban Renewal in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Published in SoundEffects: a journal of sound studies
Fall
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2020
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“the worst is not always certain”: the sonic double in Boulez’s Dialogue de l'ombre double
LACK
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University of Vermont
September
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2020
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Alcoholia
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2020
Magnetic Flux Music
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A Dill Pickle
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2020
Magnetic Flux Music
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Conservation of Energy
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2020
Magnetic Flux Music
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Across the Table
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2019
Magnetic Flux Music
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Observations of Sleep
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2019
Magnetic Flux Music
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Archipelago of Regret
Radio Airplay
WTUL (Radio Station)
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New Orleans, LA
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Languages of Origin
Magnetic Flux Music
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Awards & Grants
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Embedding a Humanistic Understanding of Climate, Environment and Society into Clark University’s curriculum
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Sep. 1, 2024 - Sep. 1, 2026
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Sherman Fairchild Foundation - Arts and Technology Grant
Clark University
Sep. 1, 2025 - Dec. 31, 2025
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