Matei Gheorghiu (b. 1984) is a Romanian composer residing in Finland. After completing his bachelor’s degree at The National University of Music Bucharest (UNMB) with Nicolae Coman, Dan Dediu and Octavian Nemescu he continued his master studies at The Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Tapio Tuomela. He has taken part in numerous master-classes and workshops with composers such as: Magnus Lindberg, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka Tiensuu, Marco Stroppa, Joshua Finberg or Herman Obst among others. From 2016 he has started his doctoral studies at the same Sibelius Academy.
Gheorghiu is the only young composer to have received a composition concert with large-scale works (orchestra and choir) from the Sibelius Academy. This happened in January 2014, where Gheorghiu’s composition concert was the first to open the new concert series “Atso’s Corner”, with conductor Atso Almila as the host. Former chairman of the young Finnish composers’ society “Korvat Auki”(Ears Open Society), he was also the society’s longest lasting chairman and only the second foreigner to hold this position. He was the artistic director of the anniversary festival of the society “Korvat auki 35, How far can you hear?” (2012) Gheorghiu has spent 8 years on the board of “Korvat Auki”, keeping a deep interest in the society’s development, either as a chairman, vice-chairman, grant strategist or as a keyboardist of the Korvat Auki Ensemble. He was also selected along with other 7 composers from more than 100 applicants for the “Le Forum” residency with Nouvel Ensemble Moderne in Montreal in November 2014.
His repertoire contains music from almost all genres, apart from opera and ballet. His music has been performed in 11 countries: Romania, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Netherlands and Canada. Some of the notable ensembles he has worked with include: Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Can), Avanti! (Fin), defunensemble (Fin), Uusinta (Fin), Zagros (Fin), Athelas (Den), Caput (Ice), Profil (Rom), ICon Arts (Rom), Norrköping symphony orchestra (Swe), The Finnish radio symphony orchestra and the Kuopio philharmonic orchestra (Fin). Some of the notable festivals he was performed at include: Le Forum (Can), Musica Nova (Fin), Time of Music (Fin), Suvisoitto (Fin), Pasimusic (Fin), Ung Nordisk Musik (Swe, Den, Ice, Nor).