Matthew Evans has been a violinist in the United States Army Band since 2007, and is currently the associate concertmaster of the US Army Orchestra. A native of State College, Pennsylvania, he studied with James Lyon at Penn State University, and Christophe and Judy Bosua at the Ecole Suzuki in Lyon, France. Mr. Evans earned bachelor’s degree in violin performance and French from the University of Louisville. While at UofL, he studied with Peter McHugh, Paul York, Paul Rafferty, and was concertmaster of the UofL symphony orchestra under the direction of Kim Lloyd.
Mr. Evans has won numerous concerto competitions and performed solos with the Williamsport Symphony, Nittany Valley Symphony, UofL Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Symphony, Sewanee Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Indiana University Symphony Orchestra and the United States Army Orchestra.
Highlights of his Army career have been performing with the joint forces orchestra for President Obama’s inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, soloing alongside the renowned fiddler Mark O’Connor on the violin suite “Strings and Threads,” and performing the theme from “Schindler’s List” in the US Capitol Rotunda for the Holocaust Museum’s “Days of Remembrance” ceremony for the past 7 years.
Matthew grew up on Atari, and classic NES. His favorite games as a kid were Super Mario Bros on SNES, and Madden ‘93 and ‘94. Mortal Combat, DOOM, and Sonic were other favorites, but they were at a friend’s house ;). Since 2001, Matthew has mainly been on PC and XBOX, enjoying series such as; Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Halo, Medal of Honor, COD, and GTA. In 2008 and 2009, Matthew spent many hours playing Modern Warfare 2. He competed in two National Competitions, and in 2009, his Kill/Death ratio was ranked in the top 100 in the world.
Matthew now plays Clash of Clans and Clash Royale on a daily basis, and enjoys keeping up on the ever expanding mobile gaming market.