Matthias Schack-Arnott

At the age of 21 Matthias was invited to be the Artistic Associate of Speak Percussion, who were recently described by the New York Times as “virtuosic and adventurous”. With Speak, Matthias has toured throughout Europe, Asia and USA, performed as a soloist, and co-composed a 40-minute marimba duo alongside Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti.

Matthias is also part of an extreme faux-ritual improv trio with Erkki Veltheim (violin) and Scott McChonnachie (saxophones) called KROKODIL, a quartet with 3 other young new music fanatics called CATHEXIS.

As a guest artist Matthias appears with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra, ELISION Ensemble, Australian Art Orchestra, Synergy Percussion, Chamber Made Opera, Victoria Opera and Nick Tsiavos Ensemble.

Matthias has worked with many leading musicians, including Steve Reich, John Zorn, Stephen O’Malley, Fritz Hauser, Brett Dean, Anthony Pateras, Jon Rose, Robin Fox, Thomas Meadowcroft, Liza Lim, Oren Ambarchi and Chris Dench.

Matthias’ solo practice explores meticulously realised percussive installations. His debut solo, Chrysalis was in 2012 presented at Next Wave Festival (Australia) and SPOR Festival (Denmark), and his recent large-scale performance installation, Fluvial, was premiered at the 2014 Next Wave Festival.