About
Dr. Matthew Otto (he/him)
Dr. Matthew Otto (he/him) is an award-winning Canadian conductor, educator, and collaborator. With unparalleled dedication to choral music education, Matthew strives to develop artistic excellence, vocal integrity, and empowerment in singers of all ages.
Now residing on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples, Matthew is the artistic director of the Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco. At YWCP, Matthew conducts the premier ensemble, the Young Women’s Chorus, and oversees their six levels of ensembles for young women ages 4-18.
For nearly 20 years, Matthew was embedded in the Toronto choral scene. From 2010-2023, Matthew served on faculty of the world-renowned Toronto Children’s Chorus, including as Director of Education and Interim Artistic Director. In addition to conducting many of their ensembles, he helped oversee TCC’s choral curriculum, educational outreach programs, and conductor apprentice program. Matthew conducted the TCC on tour to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, USA, Australia, New Zealand, as well as at America Cantat 8 in the Bahamas and at the 2017 WSCM11 in Barcelona. The TCC has also premiered many of his treble arrangements and compositions.
In 2013, he co-founded with Elise Bradley the Toronto Youth Choir (TYC) to offer a space for innovation, inclusion, and musical excellence to youth and young adults ages 14-30. During his tenure here, TYC performed with The King’s Singers, Irish Youth Choir, Choir of Trinity College Melbourne, musica intima, Missouri State University Chorale, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In 2018, Matthew led the TYC on their first international tour to sing in Carnegie Hall.
Matthew is founder/artistic director of Incontra Vocal Ensemble, a project-based, professional-level chamber choir in Toronto. Founded in 2013, Incontra provides high-calibre performance opportunities for emerging singers and conductors. Passionate about music's role in liturgy, Matthew served as Director of Music at several Toronto churches, most recently at Christ Church Deer Park. From 2020-23, he was a lecturer in Choral Music Education at the University of Toronto and directed their Soprano-Alto Chamber Choir in 2022.
Equally at home in the symphonic chorus realm, Matthew has led performances of Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Mass in C Minor and Coronation Mass, Bach’s St. John & St. Matthew Passions and Schubert’s Mass in Ab Major. In 2011, Matthew was named the first Associate Conductor of Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. During his tenure here and with the TCC, he prepared the chorus for conductors Helmuth Rilling, Peter Oundjian, Masaaki Suzuki, Donald Runnicles, Nicholas McGegan, Tania Miller, Bramwell Tovey and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
As a strong advocate for the choral arts in Canada, Matthew was President of Choirs Ontario, a provincial representative on the board of Choral Canada, and a founding member of Bridge Choral Collective. He has worked across Canada as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. In 2016, Matthew co-organized Chorus America’s Choral Management Institute in Toronto and served on its faculty.
Matthew holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Toronto. His doctoral dissertation is entitled “Let the Music Win!” Towards a Re-imagined Choral Pedagogy: A Phenomenological Case Study of Chorister Experience at the Toronto Children’s Chorus and traces the impact of high-level choral singing on youth. He is twice-recipient of the Elmer Iseler Fellowship in Choral Conducting, and finalist in both the Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting (2014) and Sir Ernest MacMillan Foundation Fellowship Award in Orchestral Conducting (2010). Matthew has presented a lecture-recital at the University of Auckland, papers at the International Symposium on Singing and Song, Podium 2018, and was recently interviewed for the Asian Choral Association’s Spotlight magazine.
