Matthew Peterson

Matthew Peterson (born July 22, 1984) is a classical composer of operas, choral works, orchestral and chamber music.

[9] The courtroom opera Voir Dire is adapted from true-crime stories witnessed by librettist Jason Zencka while he was court reporter for the Stevens Point Journal.

[10] The 2017 world premiere production by Fort Worth Opera received national critical acclaim.

Opera Now called Voir Dire “startlingly immediate and journalistic in feel, made memorable by the depth and texture of the music.”[11] Heidi Waleson, in her review for The Wall Street Journal, wrote: “The opera drills unsentimentally into the tragedies of ordinary people...its power lies in how believable their emotions are.”[12] Lifeboat, an opera with libretto by Emily Roller, is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis.

Classical Voice America praised Peterson's “admirable mastery of both vocal writing and colorful orchestration,”[13] and Anne Midgette of the Washington Post wrote “Lifeboat began dramatically with a storm scene, then moved onto the tranquility of the becalmed, focusing on three shipwreck survivors in a lifeboat, and culminating in a vocal trio that Peterson was able to make truly beautiful.”[14] Peterson's first opera, The Binding of Isaac, is a modern retelling of the Biblical story of Abraham, set in a religious-fundamentalist compound.