Matthew Dayton is a weekend and fill-in host on WETA Classical. He is also a professional musician, composer, and teacher in Takoma Park, MD. In his spare time, he most enjoys singing and playing Early Music on recorders and guitar.
As a teacher, Matthew spent six years teaching Elementary School General Music in Montgomery County, MD, prior to coming to WETA, and he still maintains a private studio of guitar, piano, ukulele, and recorder students. In teaching young children about music, he found a love and a knack for sharing with people of all ages how to listen for the myriad ways music can be put together and how music can express the inner life of things.
Matthew was originally trained in jazz piano while growing up in his hometown of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. His dual cultural upbringing gave him a profound appreciation for both the deep commonalities and the wonderful diversities in folk music traditions around the world; while his jazz training gave him a passion for the intricate, abstract structures most prized by the world’s great classical music traditions. He now specializes as a multi-instrumentalist and singer, arranging and performing songs with his life-partner, Maud, in styles ranging from Renaissance polyphony to Irish traditional pub songs.
Matthew holds a BA in Literature and Music Composition from Hampshire College, in Amherst, MA, as well as a Master’s degree in Music Education from Towson University, near Baltimore, MD. He has composed numerous pieces for children and mixed-voice choirs, chamber ensembles, recorders, solo guitar, and solo piano.