Bio

Matthew Jenkins Jaroszewicz has been Director of Orchestras at the University of Akron since 2025 and Conductor of the Canton Youth Symphony Advanced Orchestra since 2017. He served as a conductor for the Canton Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2025, during which time he served as Assistant Conductor and Associate Conductor under the late Gerhardt Zimmermann and was the orchestra's sixth Music Director during the 2024-2025 season. Prior to his arrival in Northeast Ohio, he was Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Apotheosis Opera in New York City, where he led full-scale performances of operas by Wagner, Puccini, and Strauss.

 

This past season saw performances of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Suite with the Canton Youth Symphony Advanced Orchestra, along with world premieres of Yellow Lilies by Faye-Ellen Silverman and Peace for a Death Machine by Cruz Stock and a collaboration with pianist Baron Fenwick on Gershwin's Concerto in F. At the University of Akron, he led Greig's Symphonic Dances, Hanson's Second Symphony, and Gershwin's An American in Paris, and shared the stage with saxophonist Todd Gaffke on Milhaud's Scaramouche, bassonist Breanna Sasanecki on Vivaldi's Bassoon Concerto in D minor, and State Senator Casey Weinstein as narrator for Copland's Lincoln Portrait.​

 

Matthew made his Severance Hall debut with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra in November of 2021 with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and his Carnegie Hall debut in July 2018, conducting works by Fauré and Zach Gulaboff Davis at Weill Recital Hall. In 2019, he conducted the world premiere of Our Voices: Democracy Revisited by legendary jazz trumpeter and Oscar-nominated film composer Terence Blanchard. Matthew has conducted symphonies of Vaughan Williams, Mahler, Elgar, Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Dvořák, Price, Hanson, Hailstork, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Borodin, Beach, and more. He has had the privilege of collaborating with Grammy Award winners Garrick Ohlsson, Terence Blanchard, and Dashon Burton, along with many other top-notch soloists such as Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Reed Tetzloff, Baron Fenwick, Melanie Ashkar, Bonnie Frauenthal, and Nicholas Simpson. He has given over twenty-five world premieres, including ten with the Canton Youth Symphony Advanced Orchestra.

 

Matthew holds degrees from Brown University and Mannes College of Music, where he studied under David Hayes. He served as a Julius Rudel Conducting Fellow with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, receiving mentorship from Music Director JoAnn Falletta. He is a native of Cincinnati, where he attended The School for Creative and Performing Arts before graduating from Walnut Hills High School. He swam competitively for the Cincinnati Aquatic Club and continues to train and compete through U.S. Masters Swimming as a member of O*H*I*O Masters Swim Club. He is an active member of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, where he sings in the choir. He is also an avid skier, cyclist, triathlete, bourbon enthusiast, and devoted baseball and football fan. He lives in Cleveland with his husband, author and accountant Andrew Teague McCollister, and their dog, Pappy.