Premiered by the Ligeia Quartet.

Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall, Indianapolis, IN, 8 April 2014.

Et puis encore, for string quartet (2014)

World premiere performance of Meditation for Cello and Piano, October 29, 2016.  Renee Goubeaux, cello and Valerie Kantorski, piano
Score available at www.martiandances.com

Recital 10-29-2016

Meditation

Indiana University Wind Ensemble, Stephen Pratt, Conductor

Phan, P. Q. - Festivities, 2.28.2010

Live recording from the world premiere of Lesions (2017) for clarinet, French horn and cello.
Performers: Paul Dean (clarinet), Peter Luff (horn), Trish O'Brien (cello)
Conservatorium Theatre, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
November 12, 2017 

Program notes:
Lesions was commissioned by Paul Dean for Ensemble Q and was written for Paul Dean, Trish O’Brien and Peter Luff.
The term “lesions” refers to regions in organs and tissue which have suffered damage through injury or disease, such as a wound, ulcer, abscess or tumour. I first heard this term in 2004, when my mother (age 42 at that time) was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis. While she had suffered from many disturbing, unexplainable and painful symptoms for sixteen years prior to that, the diagnosis of MS did not bring us any relief or closure.

Virtually every family has a loved one who is suffering or suffered from an incurable illness. While this is a very heavy subject, I believe it is definitely worth talking about, for two simple reasons:

1.	To show those who are affected that they are not alone and that there are millions of people in the world who are going through similar struggles;
2.	To remind those lucky few who have not been affected that we have to keep looking for cures every day.

Lesions is written in four parts that represent four most common stages of dealing with incurable illness: Sadness, Anxiety, Denial and finally Acceptance. The absence of a pause between the last two movements has an extra-musical meaning: though denial and acceptance are antithetical states of mind, many patients find themselves stuck between these two for a long time, sometimes for the rest of their lives. The new reality is too difficult to accept, yet the symptoms are just as difficult to deny.

On this photo: my mum holding me, about 2 years before MS came into our lives...

Lesions (2017) for clarinet, horn and cello

This is the premiere recording of my grade 3 piece for concert band "Why do we Fall?" 

See program notes, perusal score, and purchasing options at http://drewmorrismusic.com/why-do-we-fall

It is performed by the Siloam Springs High School Wind Ensemble, Arkansas; Director Daniel Hodge

"Why do we Fall?" for concert band - Premiere Recording

MIDI demo of my Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra, in piano reduction.

Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra (piano reduction)

Soul Music

Performed by Nebular Blue @ Kansas State University, April 6th 2018 as part of the SCI Region VI Conference
Nathan Brown- Trombone
Frank Nawrot- Bass Guitar
Rachel Rule- Piano

Lick Twenty - 7 Blue

Performed by David Cole conducting the Florida Gulf Coast University Symphony Orchestra, April 16, 2013, Ft. Myers, Florida
0.00:  Mvt. 1: To Maestro Glass in his Diamond Jubilee
3:42:  Mvt. 2:  Meditation in memoriam Maestro Hovhaness
8:05:  Mvt. 3:  Finale for Maestro Sibelius

Each of the three composers for whom the movements were named were important influences on my musical development during my teens and early 20s.  

Suite for String Orchestra

Gunnar Hirthe (clarinet) and Esther Nahm (viola)

Pilgrim Congregational UCC, Cleveland, OH, 26 June 2021

Windows, for clarinet and viola (2019)

Matthew C. Saunders has taught music from kindergarten to college in styles from madrigal to mariachi, and strives to make beautiful music for and with captivating people.  He has climbed mountains, saved someone’s life, and watched the moon rise over the prairie.  He has loved, lost, and loved again; helped friends find salvation, and found it for himself as well; taught genius students, and learned from genius teachers.  On the day his son Noah was born, he gave him his first shampoo, and looks forward to teaching him to catch a baseball and ride a bicycle sometime around 2015.  His dreams are to walk on Mars, hear a grand piano fall into an orchestra pit, make more people laugh than cry, and love his wife Becky passionately and forever.  He plays trombone and is always getting better at playing piano, and in the course of a long, love-filled, productive life, he wants to compose the Great American Symphony, ride the rails, hike the trails, read all of the good books, finally watch The Godfather, and storm the castles in the air.  He will never write unlistenable music, stop stargazing or lose money in Vegas.  He doesn’t call his mother often enough, but he still tries to do a good turn daily.  He is always up for a few hands of euchre or a good game of chess, likely winning the former and losing the latter.  

Dr. Saunders is the music department chair at Lakeland Community College, where he teaches music theory and the history of popular music, and directs the Lakeland Civic Orchestra.  Prior to coming to Lakeland in 2012, he held the position of Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Oklahoma Panhandle State University from 2007 to 2012.  He received degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and The Ohio State University.  Dr. Saunders studied composition with Donald Harris, Thomas Wells, Jan Radzynski and Wes Flinn, and trombone with Joseph Duchi and Tony Chipurn.  His fourteen years’ experience in music education includes teaching band, general music and music theory in public elementary, middle, high schools, colleges, and universities in rural, suburban and urban settings in Ohio, Georgia, and Oklahoma.  Dr. Saunders’ original compositions have been performed across the country, including performances at national conferences of the International Horn Society and the Society of Composers, and he has presented his research on rhythm at conferences of the College Music Society and the Society of Composers, and at the Oklahoma Music Theory Roundtable and the Aspen Composers Conference.  He was the conference co-host of the 2012 Society of Composers Region VI Conference, held at West Texas A&M University in October 2012.  He received the 2007 Ruth Friscoe Prize for composition and was the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association 2011 Commissioned Composer.  His music is published by Imagine Music, and he has written articles for The Journal of Band Research, Music Educators Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Instrumentalist.  He is on the web at www.martiandances.com, but the physical Dr. Saunders lives in Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio with his wife Becky and their son Noah.  


Suite for String Orchestra

Matthew C. Saunders

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