Bio

Matthew O'Donnell is a performer, composer and instrument maker based in Los Angeles. He's a native of Los Angeles and has an academic background in Physics and works as an aerospace engineer.

Matthew O'Donnell grew up and lives in Los Angeles with wife and daughter and works as a Research Scientist in the aerospace industry. Starting from the age of sixteen when he bought is his first drum kit, Matthew played drums in a few garage bands until he became aware of experimental music and sound art while listening to late night college radio. Matthew became disillusioned with playing drums conventionally and started to experiment with vibrating his drums and cymbals at their resonances. His first approach was to use bare speakers to excite drum heads or to attach the voice coil of a speaker freed from its cone directly to a cymbal. Matthew got involved in the thriving experimental music scene in Los Angeles in the early 2000's and performed his new electro-acoustic instrument around town. Matthew truly appreciates the patience that most of his audience exercised in these early days. Since then, he’s been perfecting a contactless technique using electromagnets.

Matthew's musical inspirations are Arvo Part, Alvin Lucier, Francisco Lopez and all the long-string players including Paul Panhuysen and Ellen Fullman.

Listen to more Em × Bronze Ensemble on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/emensemblebronze

Contact

For performance, collaboration, or commissioning inquiries, please email matthewlodonnell[#at*]gmail[^dot&]com.