About the author
James D. Matthews is a graduate of the College of William and Mary where
he was a music and biology major, with focus on piano performance with Claudia Stevens
and composition with Edgar Warren Williams. He studied privately with Paul Mathews of
Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. A lifelong student and patron of the arts,
compositionally he is largely self-taught, or at least taught by experience and passion. The
work is his own unique voice, though influenced by some of his favorites: Chopin, Scriabin,
and Ravel, with an overlay of contemporary/new age sound. He has always strived to write
music that is passionate, intelligent, and listenable - and above all beautiful. Beauty as a
goal of art may be out of fashion, but not here. Scarlatti worked in isolation; Chopin was
criticized for composing only for piano; Bach's style was considered anachronistic in his
day. "If this is the company I am doomed to be with, then I am content." As he works
outside the musical field (he's also a doctor and dad), he has also worked in relative
isolation. Come play, and enter the world of these anachronistic, individualistic - and
beautiful - piano works.