Matthew Westgate

Conductor Matthew Westgate “leads with a combination of expressivity and crispness” (San Francisco Chronicle). His performances are praised as “dramatic, incisive, and passionate” (Audiophile Audition) and full of “verve and swagger” (MusicWeb International). Dr. Westgate has appeared on major concert stages throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia and has guest conducted some of the nation’s top wind bands and chamber ensembles, including multiple engagements with “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band and the U.S. Coast Guard Chamber Players. In 2019 and 2022, he was the featured guest conductor with the Banda Sinfonica Metropolitana de Quito (Ecuador) at La Casa de la Musica, and in 2023 he was invited to conduct the Banda del Centre Artístic Musical de Bétera (Spain). During the summer months, he teaches and conducts at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (Twin Lake, MI) and in 2019 he led the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Northern Winds on a European concert tour of France, Germany, Austria, and Denmark. He will return to conduct the band for another European tour in 2026.

Dr. Westgate is the Department Chair and Director of Wind Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (Amherst, MA), the Commonwealth’s flagship campus, where he conducts the UMass Wind Ensemble and oversees the graduate and undergraduate conducting programs. In 2016, he was nominated for the UMass “Distinguished Teaching Award,” the only student-driven recognition of teaching on campus. University of Massachusetts ensembles under his direction have been invited to perform at multiple College Band Director National Association Conferences (Yale University, 2018; U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 2016) and on concert tours of Ecuador (Quito, Otavalo) in May 2024, and Ireland (Dublin, Galway, Cork, Killarney) in summer of 2017.

The Massachusetts Chamber Players, a professional chamber ensemble under his baton, released a critically-acclaimed recording of chamber wind music by Swiss composer Frank Martin [Frank Martin: Music for Winds} on MSR Classics in 2016, and he has since led two other commissioning/recording projects with the UMass Wind Ensemble and faculty (Quicksilver: MSR Classics, 2020, and Synchronous – New Works for Trombone and Wind Ensemble: MSR Classics 2022). Prior to his appointment at UMass Amherst, Matthew was the Director of Instrumental Activities at Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH), where he conducted the symphonic band, jazz ensemble, Xavier Pep Bands, and chamber orchestra.

A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Matthew began his musical career as a jazz/classical trombonist and public-school educator in southwest Michigan. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Music Education degree from Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), then eventually went on to earn his Master’s Degree in instrumental conducting from WMU in 2006. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (Cincinnati, OH) in 2009. His primary conducting teachers and mentors include Robert Spradling, Rodney Winther, Terence Milligan, and Frank Battisti.

He is the President-Elect of the Eastern Division of the College Band Director’s National Association and will become Division President in 2024. In his spare time, Matthew is an avid ultra-marathon and marathon runner and hiker. He recently completed his first Boston Marathon. He is married to Erica Drake, a percussionist and freelancer, and together they have an artistic and curious daughter named Juniper.