Matthew Lyon Hazzard

Matthew Lyon Hazzard is an award-winning Filipino-American composer, conductor, singer, and educator. Praised for his “exquisite text-setting” and for creating “stunning landscapes of sound,” Hazzard’s music has garnered numerous accolades. He was named the winner of the 2021 CCDA George Heussenstamm Choral Composition Competition, the 2017 ACDA Raymond W. Brock Student Composition Competition, a prize winner of the International Choral Composition Competition Japan 2016, and the inaugural winner of True Concord’s Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition. His music is performed by collegiate and professional ensembles around the world, including the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, the Portland State Chamber Choir, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, and others.

Hazzard earned his D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, his M.M. in Choral Conducting from the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach, and his M.A.T. and B.M. in Music Composition from East Carolina University. He has directed high school, collegiate, community, and church choirs, and has conducted many esteemed ensembles in concert, including the Houston Chamber Choir, the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, the USC Thorton Concert Choir, and the University of Houston Concert Chorale. He currently teaches choir and continues to write for voices at his home in Long Beach, California.