Greenwich native and Greenwich High School alumnus Rob Mathes is an unassuming, quiet legend in the music industry. The Emmy award-winning, Grammy-nominated musician, composer, arranger and producer has built a remarkable career over four decades as the magician behind the most celebrated musical performances of our time.
As he prepares for his annual holiday concert at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, December 20-21, he is finally taking a moment to reflect and share his unparalleled career in the music industry.
Mathes’ work is impossible to categorize — ranging from Pavarotti to K-Pop Demon Hunters, from the song he wrote with Sting playing continuously in the Sistine Chapel, to his ongoing collaborations with Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie. He has worked with just about everyone in music… Tony Bennett, George Michael, Elton John, Lin-Manuel Miranda, U2, John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, and Beyoncé. The list goes on and on. He recently released a deluxe remastered 25th Anniversary double vinyl edition of his genre-blending record Evening Train, a compilation that Panic! At the Disco uses to play at soundchecks.
Sting calls Mathes his “lion” in the studio and Bruce Springsteen called him a “secret weapon” for his work on his album Only the Strong Survive and his Western Stars film and recording. Urie has said Mathes is one of his greatest mentors; he asked Mathes to write original orchestrations for Panic! At the Disco’s recent Las Vegas concert. Last month he worked on a string orchestration for Sabrina Carpenter for the upcoming Muppets movie. And yet, Mathes is slow to admit to and acknowledge his unmatched position among musicians and entertainers.
While working on the most well-known and beloved musical performances of the century is Mathes’ bread and butter, his passion is creating his own original music. Thus, he developed The Rob Mathes Holiday Concert in 1993, originally as a fundraiser for Food for the Hungry and subsequently for Food Rescue, as an outlet to create original songs and perform locally at nearby SUNY PAC.
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“It’s not the holidays until the Rob Mathes Concert happens. He is my Mr. Christmas,” said longtime collaborator, Vanessa Williams, world-renowned singer, actress, producer and dancer.
“The holidays have always been a time for remarkable music and some of the most beloved and timeless pieces were written for this time of year. Consider Handel’s Messiah, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Duke Ellington’s astonishing version of the Nutcracker, and carols like In the Bleak Midwinter and Silent Night,” Mathes said.
“The Holiday Concert is my opportunity to gather brilliant and blessed musical friends together to make and perform great music, be it Bob Dylan’s Ring Them Bells, my own William the Angel, or O Holy Night. The story of the Manger, innocence coming into the world to save it, and Hanukkah, the saving of the temple by Judah and the lamp that burned against all odds – these are extraordinarily moving stories. It is a time of mystery, beauty, love and magic.”
Every year The Rob Mathes Holiday Concert features a new playlist and unique showcase of talent, putting on a Lincoln Center-caliber show.
This year’s concert will include the six-piece horn section made up of some of the greatest musicians in the area, many of whom have played with industry legends including The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin.
The great Will Lee from the Late Show with David Letterman band will be on bass and peerless gospel vocalists D-Train and Vaneese Thomas will be joined by a 40-person choir.
Of special note this year is the inclusion of music written for the virtuoso concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, David Kim, whom Mathes worked with while musically directing the Philadelphia Orchestra’s series of concerts with Sting. Kim will play alongside a remarkable string quartet led by Jonathan Dinklage, the concertmaster for Broadway’s Hamilton.
Rather than taking a much-deserved break, Mathes heads to Europe right after the holidays to work alongside Sting on the re-launch of The Last Ship, which earned Mathes both a Tony and Drama Desk nomination for Best Orchestrations in 2015.
Tickets for The Rob Mathes Holiday Concert are available at www.robmathes.com. For more information on Mathes and his projects, follow @robmathes.music on Instagram.