Meet the Artist

Matthew Carden Ganong began studying music formally in 1981 at the age of 7, in Columbia, South Carolina, learning piano under John Ervin.  He later studied the piano under his first teacher’s teacher, John Williams, at the University of South Carolina, from 1986-1993.  After attending the Peabody Conservatory from 1993-1997, where he studied piano with Boris Slutsky and Ellen Mack and harpsichord with Webb Wiggins, Mr. Ganong performed extensively as a solo and collaborative pianist and as a singer in various vocal ensembles. He continued to collaborate at large with students and faculty from the Conservatory all over the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area, in addition to giving a substantial number of solo concerts.  In Baltimore, he has collaborated with Daniel Heifetz, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, John Shirley-Quirk, Sara Watkins, and contemporary composer Michael Hersch, now on Peabody’s faculty, while premiering several of his works, including his Piano Sonata in 1997. In Chicago, where Mr. Ganong resided from 2002-2010, he collaborated with members of the Chicago Symphony, including principal violist Charles Pikler, singers from the Chicago Lyric Opera, most notably Winifred Faix Brown, Lyric Opera Conductor Andrew Davis, and famous harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy.  His experience in opera is surpassed only by his long-time involvement in chamber music.  Mr. Ganong has played in ensembles and recital with numerous instrumentalists on every major instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, and was a member of Chicago’s recently formed chamber music performance society, Anaphora, led by violinist Aurelien Pederzoli, and the Advent Chamber Orchestra, led by violinist Roxana Pavel Goldstein and violist Elias Goldstein. He has been a piano concerto soloist with the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Georgia Southern University Symphony, and the University of South Carolina Symphony, and harpsichord concerto soloist with the Advent Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Chicago, and the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium in Anderson, South Carolina. In Columbia, he studied organ with Frances Webb, and has been active as an accompanist for instruments, voices, and chorus, at USC, as an organist and pianist at various churches around Columbia, and for Columbia Choral Society.  His repertoire encompasses solo and ensemble music from the Renaissance to the present day, and he has been an avid composer and improviser for most of his life.

Mr. Ganong has done a great deal of choral accompanying on piano, harpsichord and organ, singing, and directing, in Baltimore with the Peabody Singers and Peabody Chorus, Baltimore Symphony Chorus, Concert Artists of Baltimore, Morgan State University Gospel Choir, Da Camera Singers of Loyola College, University of Maryland Baltimore County Opera, and Chesapeake Chamber Opera; in Sapporo, Japan, with the Pacific Music Festival Chorus; in Mendocino, California with Opera Fresca; in Chicago with Berry Memorial United Methodist Church, Glenbrook South High School, Intimate Opera Chicago, Da Corneto Opera of Chicago, Candleopera, OperaModa,Chicago Lyric Opera Chorus Outreach, and the Advent Chamber Orchestra; and in Columbia, with Park Street Baptist Church Choir, Eastminster Presbyterian Church Choir, St. Peter’s Catholic Church Choir, University of South Carolina Opera, USC Summer Chorus, USC Symphony and Chorus, Young Sandlapper Singers, Palmetto Mastersingers, and Columbia Choral Society. In 2014 Mr. Ganong has been Artist in Residence in the concert series at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, playing concerts on piano and harpsichord, which has included the premiere of original chamber music compositions by Mr. Ganong for piano, violin, and cello with violinist Micah Gangwer of the Charleston Symphony and cellist Dusan Vukajlovic of the South Carolina Philharmonic.  His last concert of the series consisted of the entire Well-Tempered Clavier of J.S. Bach, performed from memory in six sets over a period of over four hours.