Matthew Jacobson is an Irish drummer, composer, bandleader, educator and producer. He completed his BA in Jazz Performance at Newpark Music Centre, Dublin in 2008 and in 2010 he received an MA in Music Performance from Lucerne University, Switzerland. He is currently in the final stages of a practice-based PhD at Ulster University, exploring improvisational approaches to motivic compositions.
As well as performing, composing for and recording with his own groups ReDiviDeR and Insufficient Funs, he also co-leads Roamer, a quartet of Ireland's most internationally recognised improvisers and performs regularly with Anna Mieke; UMBRA; Berri; Ensemble Ériu; SlapBang; Origin Story; BigSpoon; AERIE (DE); Fireplace Dragon (US) and Ms Mercy (UK) among others.
Matthew is also a co-director of Diatribe Records, Ireland's leading record label for new sounds and is the Irish producer of European exchange tour and event network Match&Fuse. He is a full-time Jazz Lecturer in DCU – specialising in drum skills, ensembles, free improvisation and music business. He has received numerous awards from the Arts Council of Ireland including Travel and Training awards, Project awards, Bursary awards and Touring awards and has received several Culture Ireland awards to
present new Irish works all around the world.
He received a Fulbright Scholar Award 2013 to spend a nine-month period in New York developing compositional and improvisational skills. He was also selected as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown’s inaugural Musician-in-Residence from October 2015 – January 2016.
