Matt Finley

A professional musician for over fifty-five years, multi-instrumentalist Matt Finley is a native of Lake George, New York. He graduated from Union College, where he led a combined Union/SUNY Albany/RPI Jazz Workshop to a semi-final appearance at the American College Jazz Festival and received honorable mention in the New York Times. Matt earned his master's degree from the College of Saint Rose and is permanently certified to teach music in New York State. He performed for many years with Grammy-winning baritone saxophonist Nick Brignola and was a featured trumpet soloist and arranger with the Albany Jazz Workshop. Matt studied composition with Edgar Curtis, Director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra.

A life member of American Federation of Musicians Local 238, Matt is a retired professor of computer information systems and was academic dean at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York. For many years, Matt accomplished his goal of learning to play a new instrument every year to improve his composing and arranging abilities. Not only a multi-instrumentalist, he is in demand as a composer, arranger, sound engineer and recording sideman.

Matt led Rio JAZZ, a Brazilian jazz concert sextet he formed in 1988 featuring recording artists Peter Tomlinson, Jeff Ciampa, Mark Egan, and more than forty outstanding world-class jazz performers over the past thirty years. Matt is also musical director for his wife, singer/songwriter Denise Jordan Finley for her large-scale projects. They live in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley and in Lake George.

Matt's 2006 CD, "Brazilian Wish" on the Kingsmill Music label features original jazz sambas and bossa novas, played by some of the best musicians in the world!

Matt has performed with Nick Brignola, Joel Rosenblatt, Mark Egan, Bill O'Connell and many others.

Awards

Finalist in Jazz composition category for "When She's Gone" -17th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards (2009) Finalist in Jazz composition category for "Childhood Home" -17th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards (2009) "Another Year" - Honourable Mention for Top 50 Songs of 2009, Cafe Jazz Radio (Canada) "Editor-recommended CD" in bossa category at CD Baby, 2008 Eight of Matt's compositions were performed on Tomas Martin Lopez's CD, "On the Beat Path", which was named as one of the Top 10 CDs for 2010 by Latin Beat Magazine. #18 on the Los Angeles Hit Parade for Matt's composition, "Blue Salsa" as recorded by Tomas Martin Lopez. Dec/Jan 2010 issue of Latin Beat Magazine lbmo.com

Gear

Kanstul signature 1525 flugelhorn; Warburton mouthpieces

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