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Matthew Jacobson

Born on the 11th August 1986 in Ireland, Matthew Jacobson is a drummer, composer, bandleader, educator and producer currently based in Dublin. He completed his BA in Jazz Performance at Newpark Music Centre, Dublin in 2008 and in 2010 he received a Masters Degree in Music Performance from Lucerne University, Switzerland.

He has represented his country, touring with the European Jazz Orchestra in 2008 and also performs regularly in Ireland and abroad. He is also a co-director of Diatribe Records, Ireland's leading record label for new sounds and the Irish co-producer of European exchange tour network and annual festival Match&Fuse. Since 2010, Matthew has been a member of faculty on Newpark Music Centre’s BA in Jazz Performance program, as both a drum tutor and ensemble leader.

As well as performing, composing for and recording with his own quartet ReDiviDeR, winners of the Cork Jazz Festival 2011 ‘Best Young Artist Award’, and drums and bass saxophone duo Insufficient Funs, he also co-lead Roamer, a quartet of Ireland's most internationally recognised improvisers; Swiss-based guitar trio Blowout Fracture; German-based quintet A E R I E; and New York-based trio FarJam. Matthew has also worked with several leading European and American creative music specialists including: Evan Parker and Kit Downes (UK); Ralph Alessi, Peter Evans and Mark Feldman (US); Niels Klein and Nils Wogram (DE); and Savina Yannatou (GR) and performs regularly at home in Ireland with contemporary traditional Irish Ensemble Ériu; folk songscape quartet Clang Sayne; piano trio F-JoB; and Chris Guilfoyle’s math-jazz quintet Umbra.

As well as receiving scholarships to spend time studying at both the School for Improvisational Music in New York and Berklee College of Music in Boston, he also received a Travel and Training award from the Irish Arts Council to spend six weeks at Brhaddhvani in Chennai, South India studying the region's traditional Carnatic music. In 2014, Matthew received an Irish Arts Council Bursary award to develop solo drum- set techniques.

He received a Fulbright Scholar Award in Performing Arts to spend a nine-month period, starting September 2013, in New York developing compositional and improvisational skills. He was recently selected as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown’s inaugural Musician-in-Residence from October 2015 – January 2016.

Matthew proudly uses Jesse Simpson Cymbals with thanks to the Irish Arts Council, Music Network and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

Awards

DLR Artist in Residence 2015/16 Arts Council Ireland Bursary Award for Solo Drums 2014 Fulbright Scholar Award in Performing Arts 2013 Best Young Irish Band - RediviDeR at Cork Jazz Festival 2011


Tags

10
Album Review

Roamer: Lost Bees

Read "Lost Bees" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Roamer is vocalist Lauren Kinsella, drummer Matthew Jacobson, bassist/guitarist Simon Jermyn and saxophonist/flautist Matthew Halpin—four of Ireland's most lauded creative musicians. Formed in 2016, the quartet's activities have been frustratingly intermittent in the interim, though it is hardly surprising given that its members are based in London, Cologne, Berlin and Dublin. One early highlight came in 2017, when Roamer collaborated with Irish poet Cherry Smyth in an Arts Council-funded project at Bray Jazz Festival. That project has evolved to the ...

11
Album Review

BigSpoon: The Return Of The Prodigal Son

Read "The Return Of The Prodigal Son" reviewed by Ian Patterson


South African saxophonist Chris Engel has been a ubiquitous figure on the Irish jazz/improvised scene since arriving in Dublin in 2011. Whether in Chris Guilfoyle's modernist Umbra, Cote Calmet's Afro-Peruvian-inspired Phisqa, Italian guitarist Julien Colarossi's quartet or the Weather Report tribute band, Plaza Real, Engel's commitment is total, his fierce technique matched by a fearless improvisatory spirit. Engel has also embraced the world of electronica, notably in the duo Cafolla-Engel, whose DJ/improvised saxophone sets whip up the night owls. Engel, ...

9
Album Review

Origin Story: Good Friday

Read "Good Friday" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Past and present converge on Good Friday, the persuasive debut from Origin Story—the Dublin-trio of Greg Felton, Matthew Jacobson and Cormac O'Brien. Formerly known as F-JOB, the trio has been gigging since 2016, though the three musicians' paths have crossed in various settings over many more years. On these seven originals it is a case of familiarity breeding intuitive, free-flowing dialogue, where grooves old and new form the backdrop to fine individual and collective performances. “Good Friday," one ...

11
Interview

Matthew Jacobson: Rituals Of Sound And Time

Read "Matthew Jacobson: Rituals Of Sound And Time" reviewed by Ian Patterson


For someone whose livelihood and lifeblood are all about rhythms, the COVID-19 lockdown, with its very different rhythms, must be extremely frustrating. Especially when, as is the case with Matthew Jacobson, renowned drummer, composer, promotor and record label manager, there is no drum kit in his Dublin apartment. “I've been doing more work on the practice pad than I ever have," says Jacobson via Skype. “It's the kind of stuff that I should do regularly anyway. It would ...

5
Album Review

Daniel Rorke: Naked Allies

Read "Naked Allies" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Naked Allies is a two-horn, no-chord quartet, formed in 2018, that bridges the Atlantic. Dublin-based Australian Daniel Rorke and Dubliner Matthew Jacobson made the trek across the big pond in June that year to hook up with Oscar Noriega and electric bassist Simon Jermyn. The Irish connection runs deep, for Dublin was also home to Jermyn, who quit the Irish capital for New York in 2010. Prior to emigrating, Jermyn recorded Hymni (Diatribe Records, 2010), an impressive solo outing that ...

5
Album Review

Lina Andonovska: A Way A Lone A Last

Read "A Way A Lone A Last" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Solo flute albums rarely clog up the world's second-hand vinyl bins. More's the pity, for the flute's sounds are timeless. In prehistoric times people played flutes made from bones and mammoth ivory--making the connection between the air inhaled and exhaled to produce music. Or sounds, for there is, and always has been, a fine line between the two. On her debut solo album, classically trained, Australian flutist Lina Andonovska responds to five contemporary compositions by Irish/Ireland-based composers. The Dublin-based Australian ...

8
Album Review

ReDiviDeR: Mere Nation

Read "Mere Nation" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It may be disappointing to enigmatologists that there are no palindromes or obvious anagrams from ReDiviDeR on its third Diatribe Records release, following Never Odd Or Even (2011) and I Dig Monk, Tuned (2013). Musicophiles, however, should be delighted, for like its predecessors, Mere Nation is a colorful box of delights. Rambunctious, brooding and tender in turn, drummer Matthew Jacobson's compositions explore a heady no man's land between discipline and freedom. Thirteen years into ReDiviDeR's trajectory, Jacobson, alto ...

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"A European jazz artist of growing charisma" - John Fordham, the Guardian "One of Ireland's most exciting new talents" - The Irish Times
Primary Instrument

Drums

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

• Member of Faculty on Newpark Music Centre’s BA in Jazz Performance. Specialities: Drums, Ensembles, Music Business, Free Improv (September 2010 – present) • Music Generation Jazz Ensemble Leader (January 2017 – present) • Various Workshops and Educational Events with the National Concert Hall of Ireland: Education, Community and Outreach Band (February 2015 – present) • Drums and Percussion teacher at the International School of Zug and Lucerne, Switzerland (September 2009 – June 2010) • Part-time teacher for the Rhythm Studies Module of the Preparatory Course at Lucerne University, Switzerland (September – December 2009) • Member of Faculty at the Greystones Theatre Summer Music Camp (2008 and 2009) • Drum teacher at Castlepark Primary School in Dalkey, Co

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Return Of The...

Diatribe Records
2022

buy

Lost Bees

Diatribe Records
2022

buy

Mere Nation

Diatribe Records
2020

buy

A Way A Lone A Last

Diatribe Records
2020

buy

Good Friday

Self Produced
2020

buy

Naked Allies

Orenda Records
2019

buy

Videos

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