Biography

Matthew Raymond Origel, born in 2001, began playing the flute eleven years ago with Jill Heinke Moen in Silicon Valley, California. He held principal flute positions in all his high school ensembles, in regional and all-state honor bands/orchestras, and also with the San Jose Youth Symphony Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he had the honor of performing at the renowned Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2019.

Continuing his music education after high school, Matthew completed his Bachelor’s of Music in Flute Performance in 2023 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Herb Alpert School of Music under the tutelage of Denis Bouriakov, internationally-acclaimed flute soloist and principal flute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During his time at UCLA, Matthew held principal positions in all of his school’s ensembles, premiered pieces composed by fellow UCLA peers as well as composers of the greater Los Angeles area, and in his second year, he won First Prize in the San Diego Flute Guild Collegiate Competition, competing against flutists from top music schools across the nation. In 2022, he spent two months on the East Coast of the United States at the Brevard Music Institute, where he played in the college division orchestra and also successfully auditioned onto the substitute flute list for the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida, during their regional audition tour.

After recently completing his Bachelor’s studies, Matthew currently lives in Madrid, Spain, pursuing his Master’s of Music in Flute Performance at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Queen Sofía School of Music) under the instruction of legendary flutist and pedagogue Jacques Zoon, former Principal Flutist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This past summer of 2024, Matthew performed throughout Germany as a member of the prestigious Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.