Mathew Rosenblum was born in Flushing, Queens, and began playing the saxophone at age eight. He attended the High School of Music and Art as an instrumentalist, where his interest turned to free jazz. While at Music & Art, he met jazz performers Anthony Coleman and David Krakauer, and performed with them from 1970 to 1973 at venues throughout New York. Rosenblum studied music composition at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, where he earned a BM in 1977 and MM in 1979, and Princeton University, where he earned an MFA in 1981 and PhD in 1992. He studied with composers Milton Babbitt, Donald Martino, Paul Lansky, Jaki Byard, and Malcolm Peyton, while also working privately with composer Burr Van Nostrand. During and after his time at NEC and Princeton, Rosenblum’s work was closely associated with composers Lee Hyla, Ezra Sims, Dean Drummond, and Eric Moe. In 1991, he joined the music faculty at the University of Pittsburgh as professor of music composition and theory, chair of the Department of Music, and co-director of both the Music on the Edge new music series as well as the biannual Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival (co-presented by the Andy Warhol Museum). As a composer, Rosenblum is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Music Fellowship Grant, two Fromm Foundation Commissions, a Barlow Endowment Commission, several MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Residency fellowships, and multiple “Featured Composer” and “Composer in Residence” honors at music festivals and colleges in the United States and Asia. Rosenblum has been characterized as “a leading voice in American microtonal music [who] attempts a synthesis of elements from classical, jazz, rock and world music in his work.” The New York Times has called Rosenblum a composer who “mix[es] surreal microtonal scales [and] seductive melodies.” A 2018 review in Stereophile Magazine described Rosenblum as a composer who “blends percussion, acoustic instruments, electronics, voice, and microtonal elements in visceral, moving ways.” Many of his compositions have employed a similar integration of diverse compositional elements. Rosenblum himself has cited his long-standing love for Javanese music and the music of LaMonte Young as central influences on his work. His principal publishers are Plurabelle, C. F. Peters, and Subito Music.