Matthew Nielson - Craft. Process. Choices. collaboration. A Life in the Theatre.

The Creative Mindset

Sound Designer Matthew Nielson & Tony Angelini share stories and lessons about the joy and the craft of sound design for the theatre and for film.
Based in the Washington, DC Area, Matthew M. Nielson is a producer, composer, sound designer, recording engineer, audio post production engineer, songwriter, and orchestrater for Film, TV, Theater, Radio, Web, and Music

His music for film has been heard in film festivals across the US. He has composed and designed more than two dozen short films, feature-length documentaries and feature-length narratives, including Poker Face, Lulu and Josie, A Sleepover Story, Fire’s Daughter, Death in Time, Londinium, and Elbow Grease. He has won several film festival awards for his work and been nominated for several more. His music and sound design for television have been featured in branding packages for Epix Drive-In and Spike TV, and his commercial clients include Delivery.com, NBA, UFC on FOX, Bounty Hunters, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, NBC Sports, v05, and Hometrust Bank. His work can be heard in video games, including Drone Command.

Theatrically, Nielson has designed, composed, orchestrated and written songs for hundreds of productions around the world. Off-Broadway: Shakespeare’s Villains and Lakawanna Blues (Public Theatre). Regional credits include Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Portland Center Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Milwaukee Repertory, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Delaware Theatre Company, Barrington Stage, NC Stage, Triad Stage, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Signature Theatre, Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Company, Library of Congress, Folger Theatre, the National Gallery of Art, and many others. International credits include productions in Germany and Russia. Nielson has mentored sound design students and taught master classes at the University of Maryland and American University.

During the pandemic, Nielson worked on many digital content projects for theatres in the DC Area and across the US as a location audio recordist, sound designer, composer, and audio post engineer. Projects include Homebound, a 10-episode web series available online, several theatre/film hybrid projects, and more than a dozen streaming versions of live theatrical productions.

Nielson was a founding member of the audio theatre company The Audible Group (now Listenably), who produced holiday productions of A Child’s Christmas in Wales and Gift of the Magi for charity. With The Audible Group, Nielson wrote, directed, scored and designed the dramatic audio series Troublesome Gap. He co-founded Sound Lab Studios; a premier full-featured audio post-production house and The Curious Music Company; a production music library and custom music shop.

Nielson has won five Helen Hayes Awards and been nominated for many more, including the League of Cincinnati Theatre awards, Barrymore Awards and BroadwayWorld.com awards. He is currently enrolled in the songwriting program with the Berklee College of Music Online.

Some Links:
Holding for Lights: https://curiousmusic.bandcamp.com/track/holding-for-lights

Mary Stuart (Original Score by Matthew Neilson: https://open.spotify.com/album/5WxQXrkqW172hToax0jXOt?si=_eFQQ_2CT0C-PCGwXfu32w

A track from The Book of Will at Round House:

I'm your host, Tony Angelini. Thanks for listening. Find out more at www.creativemindset.org