Matthew F. Reese is an American conductor and musicologist. He was most recently music director of the Washington Young Sinfonia and of the English chamber orchestra, Consortium Novum. In his three years with CN, the ensemble was active on both the concert platform and in the opera pit, with a repertory ranging from Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro to Stravinsky’s Petrushka, and Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung. He concluded his CN tenure with a charity performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in aid of homelessness relief. 

A recipient of Oxford’s conducting prize, Matthew has held the Music Directorships of the Oxford University Philharmonia (2016–17), the Oxford University Wind Orchestra (2015–16), and The Choir of Pusey House (2017–18). In 2016, he was named the University’s inaugural Conducting Scholar, assistant-conducting the St. Anne’s Camerata. Matthew has studied conducting under the Celibidache student, Angel Gil-Ordóñez (PostClassical), Paul Spicer (Finzi Singers), Akiko Fujimoto (Minnesota Orchestra), and with the Haydn scholar, James Armstrong (William & Mary).

Matthew holds degrees from the College of William & Mary (BA, 2013) and the University of Oxford (M.Phil, 2016; D.Phil, 2019). He is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Musicology at the Peabody Institute and The Johns Hopkins University. Recent assistantships include the Georgetown University Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Academy, and the National Orchestral Institute.

Matthew is currently a Postulant for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, pursuing an M.Div at the Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. There, he is also resident in the Berkeley Divinity School, the Anglican/Episcopal seminary at Yale. His studies are jointly underwritten by YDS and the ISM, with additional support from Berkeley, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the Diocese of Maryland, and Grace & St. Peter’s.