Matthew Swanson is Director of Choruses for the Cincinnati May Festival, a cornerstone of the Cincinnati arts community since its founding in 1873. He is the artistic leader of the May Festival’s choral ensembles — the May Festival Chorus, the May Festival Chamber Choir, the May Festival Youth Chorus and the Cincinnati Boychoir — and collaborates with the annually appointed Festival Director to craft programming for the May Festival. He conducts and prepares the May Festival Chorus — the core artistic element of the Cincinnati May Festival and the official Chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops — for their performances at historic Music Hall and beyond. As Director of Choruses, he also leads the May Festival Conducting Fellowship, a collaboration of the May Festival and the Choral Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Previously, Matthew Swanson was the Associate Director of Choruses, Youth Chorus Director and Director of Special Projects for the May Festival. Beyond the May Festival, he has been affiliated with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir, Lincoln Center (New York), CCM and Xavier University, along with other educational and cultural institutions in the U.S. and abroad. He is frequently engaged as a host and presenter of lectures, concerts and broadcasts in Cincinnati, New York and elsewhere.

Swanson is a native of southeast Iowa and was educated at the University of Notre Dame, CCM and King’s College, Cambridge. He held the May Festival Conducting Fellowship in 2015. Prior to his fellowship appointment, he sang in the May Festival Chorus and worked in the CSO Box Office.