Matthew Wren - Composer
My love of orchestral music can probably be traced back to going to the cinema in 1978, when I would have been just five years old, and watching the film Star Wars. Like consecutive generations who went to see films like Jurassic Park and Harry Potter, John William’s music was and still is a fundamental part of that experience.
My first LP was in fact not a pop album, but John Williams’ score to ET. We had a second, for the most part unused lounge at my childhood home in Tring, which had a HiFi system in it; I would often go in there, lie on the floor, listen to that LP, and be transported to another World. Still today I have a deep personal affinity with that score.
Although my parents listened to a lot of “classical” music, listening to the great composers’ works didn’t become a real passion of mine until my late teens. I had recently moved back home after being at boarding school, and CD’s had just begun to be sold in the shops. I was finding it hard to adjust back to homelife, and I was going to a school where I felt no real sense of belonging.
I used to find solace in listening to classical music, and it was also at this time that I started writing music of my own. Over the years I wrote quite a lot of sketches on the piano, but never dedicated enough of my focus to finish any of them.
In December 2023, however, I decided it was really now or never, and I sat down and wrote my first orchestral composition “Im Schwarzwald (In The Black Forest)”, and on its tail “Matterhorn”.
In 2025 I released “Pathei Mathos”, which translates roughly to “wisdom through suffering”, and is a quote from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. It was composed in 2003 after losing my best friend, who had been suffering from mental health issues. It was a time when I was also going through some other traumatic life events.
In early 2026 we will be filming a video at the Waterside Theatre with a young dancer from The Royal Ballet who has been commissioned to choreograph and perform a neo-classical ballet routine for Pathei Mathos. I also have had Matterhorn rearranged as a commemorative choral work to be performed at Tring Church by the Tring Choral Society on July 5th 2026.
I clearly have benefitted from several prominent autistic traits in my music. I think principally hyper-focus. Without developing a passionate interest in classical music in my younger years or being able to daydream for hours upon end about my music, I doubt I would be able to do what I have done.
I also suffer from anxiety which is tremendously common in the autistic community, and part of that for me has been agoraphobia, to the point where a few years ago I was housebound for close to a year.
My music is inevitably drawing on my battles with anxiety; there is a lot of darkness you will hear that emanates from this place, but hopefully through this darkness shines a ray of light.
