Inspired by the worlds of nature and literature, Matthews creates music that encourages the listener to step beyond the everyday, to dwell for a while in images of paradox, to consider the ever-changing tapestry of life.

Michael Matthews completed a Ph.D. in composition at North Texas State University in 1985. In 2012 Matthews retired from twenty-seven years of full-time teaching at the Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music, University of Manitoba; he is now Professor Emeritus there. Matthews is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and currently lives and works in Berlin.

Matthews is also active as a photographer, and his abstract images were recently exhibited in Germany and the US. Canadian publisher At Bay Press will shortly be releasing The Gibbous Moon, a book of photography and poetry created in collaboration with poet Dennis Cooley.