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Matthew Herbert

For the National:

Matthew Herbert is an award-winning composer, artist, producer and writer whose work ranges from more than 30 albums (including Bodily Functions) to scores for Oscar-winning films (A Fantastic Woman), as well as music for the National Theatre, Broadway, TV series (Noughts and Crosses and The Responder for BBC), games (Lego) and radio.

He has performed solo, as a DJ and with various musicians including his own 21-piece big band and 100-piece choir all round the world, from Sydney Opera House to the Hollywood Bowl and created installations, plays and opera.

He has remixed artists such as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg and Mahler and been a long-time collaborator of Bjork’s.

He has had work commissioned by the Royal Opera House, the BBC and Deutsche Grammophon amongst many others.

His work ONE PIG followed the life of a pig from birth to plate and beyond.

His debut book The Music was published by Unbound in 2018 and he is the creative director of the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

In 2021 a documentary by Enrique Sanchez Lansch about Herbert and listening entitled A Symphony of Noise was released. Shot over ten years, the film follows Herbert through 20 or so of his projects as an electronic musician, artist and sound activist.

He also recently completed his PhD about the ethics of composing with sound and his next experimental project is based on hearing more than one billion sounds.