Norman Mathews

Norman Mathews' autobiography, The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater has been published by Eburn Press. As a composer/playwright, Mathews' work has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Harris Theatre of Music and Dance, and around the world. La Lupa, his opera set to the novella by Giovanni Verga, was performed at the Ft. Worth Opera. Songs of the Poet, set to Walt Whitman, premiered in Europe with Munich Opera tenor Gregory Wiest, who recorded the work for Capstone Records. The American Composers Orchestra performed the work at its Whitman and Music Celebration. Rossetti Songs, set to Christina Rossetti poetry for mezzo-soprano, piano, flute, and cello, was recorded by Navona Records and distributed by Naxos. Sonnet No.61, a choral work set to Shakespeare, won the American Composers’ Forum VocalEssence Award. Ye Are Many—They Are Few, Cantata for a Just World received a Puffin Foundation Grant and premiered at the Chicago Cultural Center. Mathews’ one-woman Dorothy Parker musical play, You Might as Well Live, which received a Vogelstein Foundation playwriting grant, has been performed around the country by TonyAward-Winner Michele Pawk and Outer-Critics-Award-Winner Karen Mason. His music is published by Graphite Publishing. His play Drone dramatizes the horrific effects of drone warfare on two families: the pilot’s and the victim’s