Summary and Recent Projects

Mr. O’Malley possesses extensive training and experience in music. He is currently involved with numerous projects, including work as creative director for SoPo Productions, a full-service music and video production company; and producer and engineer for Rhythm, Rhyme, Results, a music production company specializing in educational rap and hip-hop. He recently produced and performed for the debut album “Santa JG Swings”, featuring Jonathan Meath, long-time producer of children’s television programming such as “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego” and “Zoom”.  He also worked recently as producer, arranger, and performer for Nick Diaco, a New York performance artist.

Mr. O’Malley has previously worked for The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA, where he was a member of the national promotions group responsible for developing and managing programs for Disney movies and brands. He was involved with promotions for numerous films and the early planning for “Finding Nemo”. Mr. O’Malley also spent a summer with Levels Audio Post, a leading recording and post-production house in Hollywood, CA. Clients of Levels Audio include American Idol Productions, Disney/Pixar, 20th Century Fox, and MTV Networks.

Mr. O’Malley graduated with Honors from Harvard College with a degree in Music/Music Composition. For his senior thesis he wrote an original thirty minute composition, performed by a 26-piece chamber orchestra composed of musicians from Harvard University and the New England Conservatory of Music.

Background and Training

Matt has been active in piano and music since a youth and has had the good fortune of having studied music composition under Bernard Rands and Eliot Gyger of Harvard University and Howard Frazin of the Longy School of Music. Matt has trained in classical piano with Leslie Amper and Hugh Hinton, and in jazz piano with Peter Cassino, all of the Longy School of Music. He has attended programs at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Berklee College of Music, and the CSUF Summer Arts with the Kronos Quartet, and has been a member of the Youth Chorale of the New England Conservatory of Music. 

Matt has had his music compositions performed by several professional groups and has written numerous contemporary music compositions that he has performed on piano at his own concerts and shows. He has created, produced and been the feature performer in music variety shows at Harvard and in the Boston area—“musical fusion” shows that have offered combinations of classical, jazz and contemporary music, as well as varied instrumental ensembles.

In 1998, Matt, playing piano, was the Teen and Overall Grand Prize Winner in the New England Searching for the Stars Competition. In 1999, he was awarded the Excellence in Composition Award by the Longy School of Music’s Preparatory Division and was the winner of the Northeast District (MA) High School Jazz Competition. In 2000, Matt was responsible for writing, producing and performing on a CD for the pop group Matt O’Malley and the Lobster Clinic, which won a national competition for Best High School Band in America/2000, sponsored by Planetjam.com. Matt has also been a guest performer with the Geoffrey Hicks Big Band at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston, MA.

While attending Harvard College, Matt was the piano player for the Harvard Jazz Band and the piano/keyboard player and actor for Harvard’s improv grouom the Immediate Gratification Players. He also was a Music Director for the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

Matt accompanied the famous vocalizer Bobby McFerrin, and jazz guitarist Jim Hall, and served as a composer, arranger, music director, musician, and actor for numerous productions of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, the Harvard-Radcliffe Contemporary Music Ensemble, Harvard’s Arts First festival, and the City of Cambridge, MA Citystep arts program. He also wrote “Friday by Noon”, which was performed by the Auros Group for New Music at the 2001 Thelma E. Goldberg concert.

In the spring of 2002, Matt created, produced and performed on the piano and keyboard throughout an original musical extravaganza, “Drink my wine…Dig my earth”, a two-and-a-half-hour variety show featuring twenty of Harvard’s top performing artists–a show The Harvard Crimson called “an incredible night of music”. In 2003, Matt wrote the music for the original opera, ”Strapped”, reviewed by The Harvard Crimson as “a complete masterpiece” and “an original concept, superbly executed”. In 2004 Matt was music director for Eleganza, the annual fashion show spectacular at Harvard, produced by BlackCAST, a Harvard theater group.