The Matthew Rye Award for Composition

Matthew Rye (1962-2023) studied music at Magdalen, Oxford before going on to study composition under John Joubert at Birmingham University. He started a PhD in composition but was unable to complete it as he ran out of funding, and went on to work instead as a musical journalist, critic, editor and writer for various publications including The Telegraph, The Musical Times, BBC Music Magazine, The Strad, Opera, Bachtrack and The Wagner Journal. He was a contributor to Grove and was general editor of “1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die”.

He was passionate about Wagner and had great interest in German music of the 20^th century, especially the Hollywood émigrés such as Korngold, and the music decried by the Nazis as  ‘entartete Musik’ (degenerate music).

He latterly took up composition again, and also became expert in typesetting music for teaching, example setting and the publication of scores.

Outside of music, Matthew was a keen gardener, cook, cruciverbalist, cyclist and traveller. He met his life-partner and future husband David Gilmore in 1992, and they have been pleased to support Young Sounds since 2019.

Matthew proved that you do not have to be a performer to have a wonderfully fulfilling musical life,  and his family hope that this award for composition will enable nascent composers to continue with their ambitions in a way that Matthew would have encouraged.