Matthew Martin Ward has done almost every job a musician can do. Performer, film and stage composer, conductor, musical director. Sideman, soloist, singer, accompanist, arranger. Contractor, van driver, therapist. Teacher, healer, mentor, actor, coach…
“My performances include soloing at age 12 with the Milwaukee Symphony. In high school I formed a jazz trio doing gigs at private parties and restaurants. One time at band camp I coached a girl auditioning for an NBC Chicago showcase for young musical comedy talent. She booked it.”
As winner of the Commencement Competition at the American Conservatory of Music, he soloed with orchestra at Chicago’s Symphony Hall. Finishing his Bachelor of Piano Performance in a scant 11 years, he worked his way through college performing in bars, concert halls and bathhouses. He played at Soldier Field Stadium with Ben Arden’s Big Bear Band. “It was just like a high school pep rally, but for money.” Further Chicago highlights include the duo-piano Side by Side by Sondheim with Cyril Ritchard (Paul Geminianni musical director), and the onstage band acting and playing in I Love My Wife.
“Arriving in New York, I financed my musical theater ambitions with piano bar and cabaret gigs. The ballet classes for Miss Bataille in Barrington IL led to improvising music for the Actors’ Movement Studio. Some of those aspiring actors coached singing auditions with me.” Subbing at Nunsense, Ruthless and Whoop-Dee-Doo Off-Broadway prepared him to music direct and play two editions of the iconic revue Forbidden Broadway. Among the people he worked with there, he continues to play for Christine Pedi, whose one-woman show Great Dames has been performed in London, England and Johannesburg, Durban and Capetown South Africa, as well as all across the U.S. Playing on Broadway with the orchestras of Tommy, Blood Brothers, State Fair, Tarzan and especially Avenue Q prepared him to work at Radio City Music Hall playing the Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes. “Riding the hydraulic band car and playing for a dancing bear doing the Sugar Plum Fairy definitely made the job fun.”
After attempting writing music and lyrics for two musicals in Chicago, he joined with book writer/lyricist Stephen Cole to create After the Fair. A chamber musical based on a Thomas Hardy short story, it premiered in Dallas TX and has been produced in New York, Seattle, Chicago, London and regionally. With Cole he wrote the score for Casper, about the cartoon ghost, for Chita Rivera. With Peter Napolitano, he wrote The Lady in Penthouse B, a musical comedy about gossip and show biz. “Music is entertainment and art. In every performance and composition I do, in any genre, I focus on combining sophistication and accessibility.”