Matthew Forman

Matthew is a current undergraduate neuroscience major at UW-Milwaukee and he has been teaching music since his junior year of high school. He has been intensively studying piano for 14 years and violin for 8 years. He has been studying piano with Shanti Daya for 5 years and Amanda Kirkpatrick for less than a year. Other teachers of influence have included Angela Peterson, Joe Nuval, and Joan McCallum. Matthew has participated in the Wisconsin Federation of Music Clubs festival for 6 years, receiving the highest score every year. Along with Federation, he has participated in WSMA State for three years, and in addition to receiving the highest score each year, he has been awarded the highest honor of Exemplary Performance. Although out of everything, his most prestigious award was winning the MMTA Debut Piano Competition/Recital where he was awarded a private 1 hour long recital and a $500 cash prize. 

Besides piano, Matthew has played French horn and violin extensively, both in and out of school. He was part of the first violin section in MYSO’s Senior Symphony; he has participated in MYSO for 5 years (2 of which were for French horn). In the 2019-2020 concert season, he was given the opportunity to participate in MYSO’s Honors Chamber program, directed by Frank Almond. In the summer of 2019, he attended the Elm City ChamberFest Camp held on the Yale campus, where he played works by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Elgar, and Prokofiev. At WSMA State, he was awarded an Exemplary nomination for the first movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto. Outside of music, Matthew is very committed to competitive rock climbing. 

When it comes to teaching music, Matthew's philosophy is that every private music lesson has to be uniquely tailored to best fit each individual student; every budding musician, like every plant, has a unique balance of needs in order to truly thrive. Matthew can both teach at a very advanced level that may require more of a rigorous teaching curriculum, but he can also teach complete beginners where his lessons focus on equipping the student with all of the tools to become a fantastic musician while having a fun time doing it! He is very willing to listen to the individual need of every student and adapt his teaching style to fit each student whether that be very critical and detailed, or more fun and nurturing. With his extensive competitive music side in addition to his more adventurous rock climbing side, he knows how to make his lessons focused yet exciting and fun! When it comes to repertoire, Matthew is very classically trained which is how he chooses to pass down his knowledge of music to his students. For advanced pianists, he most enjoys teaching music from the romantic and impressionistic periods which include composers like Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Ravel.