Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, and laptop artist based in Hartford, CT. He is a graduate of the Hartt School of Music (MM in Music Composition, 2008) and St. Mary's College of Maryland (BA in Music and English, 2006). His principal composition teachers include Robert Carl, Ingram Marshall, Ken Steen, and David Froom. He has also studied classical guitar with Orlando Roman and Andres Hidalgo.

His composing grows out of an appreciation of natural resonances, acoustic spaces, field recording, and outdoor listening.  His recent works have involved notating of found processes (aural, visual, or structural) for live players, generating found processes out of notation, and assembling music from points in between. In addition to the documented spaces and environmental recordings heard in much of his electroacoustic work, these influences also enter his acoustic music in tangible ways: pine sap drops as melodic material in his Soft Song (for solo cello), river stones lightly scraped on wood in his solo percussion work, Riverbed.

Matt frequently collaborates with musicians, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Since 2007, he has directed the Hartford Sound Alliance, a CT-based performer/composer ensemble that presents concerts, installations, improvisations, and workshops at universities and art spaces across New England. In April 2009, he was commissioned by the Roberts Foundation and SEMI to create a new percussion+electronics piece, Riverbed, for the Full Force Dance Theatre and percussionist Bill Solomon.

In June of 2010, he was in residency at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Death Valley (Beatty, NV), where he developed manmade mountains + underground river, a six-channel generative sound installation. In early 2010, he completed a tour of his of his concert-length solo percussion work, Ghost Music, performed by percussionist Bill Solomon, which included six performances and guest lectures across New England and the DC-metro area.

Some of his other notable recent performances, residencies, and installations include Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), Machine Project (Los Angeles), One Brooklyn Bridge (Brooklyn, NY), Zeigteist @ Outpost 186 (Cambridge, MA), the Warehouse Theater (Washington D.C.), Art Factory (Las Vegas, NV), An Die Musik (Baltimore, MD), Arlington Arts Center (Arlington, VA), Strand on Volta (Washington D.C.), the Chapel (Seattle, WA), Geneva Conservatory (Switzerland), Santa Caterina Cathedral (Alba, Italy), Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), CalArts (Valencia, CA), Towson University (Towson, MD), University of Maryland Baltimore County, Hartford Art School (West Hartford, CT).

In addition to composing, Matt maintains a busy schedule as a performer and educator. He is an adjunct professor at Capital Community College (Hartford, CT), where he teaches music production technology and directs the school's recording studio, while also co-curating the Concerts@Capital music series. He teaches music and ensemble classes at Hebrew High School of New England (Bloomfield, CT). He has also guest lectured at the Hartt School and Trinity College (Hartford, CT) on electronic composition, interactive media, and MAX/MSP. He also regularly performs with singer-songwriter Kat Mulvaney and the Hartford-based indie pop band Sunspots.