× Board & Staff Make a Donation Giving Support Education Upcoming Events Past Events
Home Board & Staff Make a Donation Giving Support Education Upcoming Events
Atlantic Overture
Matthew Kimbley

Atlantic Overture
Matthew Kimbley
(b. 2003 in Asheville, North Carolina)

Matthew Kimbley takes a diligent, no-nonsense approach to his music. His remarkable achievements at only 21 could hardly have happened otherwise. In his first ten years, living in Asheville, he studied piano with John Cobb, a student of Claudio Arrau, Chile’s greatest pianist of all time. Kimbley takes pride in his musical lineage through Arrau back to Liszt and Beethoven. Kimbley won multiple Asheville area piano competitions and at age 10 played as a guest pianist with the Hendersonville Youth Symphony.

At 11 Kimbley moved to nearby Collegedale and studied with Peter Cooper, dean of the School of Music at Southern Adventist University (SAU). Kimbley has performed five solo recitals since 2015 and has won SAU’s Concerto Competition three times, most recently playing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 (3rd mvmt) with the SAU Symphony.

Kimbley has also been busy as a composer and has a portfolio of performances available to listen to on his website–including Atlantic Overture which was first presented at SAU in November 2023. His approach to composing is more personal and self-directed than his formal training in performance. The purpose of Atlantic Overture was to have a work for full orchestra he could submit when applying to graduate school. He prevailed in his effort without ever having written anything previously for orchestra. Nor had he formally studied orchestration. Instead he gathered books around and taught himself. Do not underestimate the extraordinary achievement it is that a piece with this pedigree is being presented a year later by a well-respected regional orchestra!

Notes from the SAU premiere set the stage. “The piece was inspired by various trips Kimbley has taken to the Atlantic Ocean’s coastline over the past several years. One of his strongest inspirations for composition is nature, particularly water. From the bustling beaches of Florida to the rocky coasts of Maine, Kimbley has combined many of his experiences visiting the Atlantic Ocean into this piece.” From crashing waves to intense storms, the effects bear some resemblance to Debussy La Mer without being so intentionally programmatic. Kimbley drew a motif from calls of the black-capped chickadee. He heard “fee-bee” (as birders name the call) that is a simple full step up, but was probably unconsciously drawn to the “begging dee” call that is more like the quick five notes down and up that follow a major triad, except the last interval, a tritone up. The last note is a whole tone higher than the first, suggesting a Lydian harmony. This down-and-up figure and its harmonic suggestion remain ever-present in much that follows. Each time the begging dee figure appears with minimal adornment, the music rebuilds lush, sometimes brilliant, sometimes complicated, always seriously Romantic textures. The end is quiet, solo clarinet repeating begging dee one last time and two pizzicato chords. 

Atlantic Overture
Matthew Kimbley

Atlantic Overture
Matthew Kimbley
(b. 2003 in Asheville, North Carolina)

Matthew Kimbley takes a diligent, no-nonsense approach to his music. His remarkable achievements at only 21 could hardly have happened otherwise. In his first ten years, living in Asheville, he studied piano with John Cobb, a student of Claudio Arrau, Chile’s greatest pianist of all time. Kimbley takes pride in his musical lineage through Arrau back to Liszt and Beethoven. Kimbley won multiple Asheville area piano competitions and at age 10 played as a guest pianist with the Hendersonville Youth Symphony.

At 11 Kimbley moved to nearby Collegedale and studied with Peter Cooper, dean of the School of Music at Southern Adventist University (SAU). Kimbley has performed five solo recitals since 2015 and has won SAU’s Concerto Competition three times, most recently playing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 (3rd mvmt) with the SAU Symphony.

Kimbley has also been busy as a composer and has a portfolio of performances available to listen to on his website–including Atlantic Overture which was first presented at SAU in November 2023. His approach to composing is more personal and self-directed than his formal training in performance. The purpose of Atlantic Overture was to have a work for full orchestra he could submit when applying to graduate school. He prevailed in his effort without ever having written anything previously for orchestra. Nor had he formally studied orchestration. Instead he gathered books around and taught himself. Do not underestimate the extraordinary achievement it is that a piece with this pedigree is being presented a year later by a well-respected regional orchestra!

Notes from the SAU premiere set the stage. “The piece was inspired by various trips Kimbley has taken to the Atlantic Ocean’s coastline over the past several years. One of his strongest inspirations for composition is nature, particularly water. From the bustling beaches of Florida to the rocky coasts of Maine, Kimbley has combined many of his experiences visiting the Atlantic Ocean into this piece.” From crashing waves to intense storms, the effects bear some resemblance to Debussy La Mer without being so intentionally programmatic. Kimbley drew a motif from calls of the black-capped chickadee. He heard “fee-bee” (as birders name the call) that is a simple full step up, but was probably unconsciously drawn to the “begging dee” call that is more like the quick five notes down and up that follow a major triad, except the last interval, a tritone up. The last note is a whole tone higher than the first, suggesting a Lydian harmony. This down-and-up figure and its harmonic suggestion remain ever-present in much that follows. Each time the begging dee figure appears with minimal adornment, the music rebuilds lush, sometimes brilliant, sometimes complicated, always seriously Romantic textures. The end is quiet, solo clarinet repeating begging dee one last time and two pizzicato chords.