Matthew Ellenwood
They/Them
Website: www.matthewellenwood.com
Location:
Chicago, Illinois
Sandboxes played in:
Singer + Actor + Director + Composer + Educator
Degrees & Certifications:
BM, Illinois Wesleyan University
MM, Northwestern University
Teacher Training Certificate Michael Chekhov Acting Technique
Preliminary requirements completed for Teacher Certification in Knight-Thompson Speechwork
Affiliations:
NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and the Chicago NATS chapter
PAVA (Pan American Vocology Association) Associate member
VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association)
MTEA (Musical Theatre Educators Alliance)
ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers)
Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA)
What do you teach:
Voice (singing and speech), acting (theatre and on-camera), emotional regulation, artistic collaboration
Teaching Philosophy, in a nutshell:
Integrating voice science, self-awareness and emotional regulation, acting, musicality, and performance practice into a cohesive whole.
My studio's primary focii are:
training singer-actors in the versatile voice demands of the professional theatre and recording industries.
cultivating a focused mind-body-emotion awareness, paired with regulation skills, which can then be skillfully applied to life and work.
habilitating injured singers and professional voice users (with the assistance of a team of medical professionals).
Most memorable performance:
The delight of directing and performing in a collectively written show (music and script) with the theatre company I co-founded (Terra Mysterium).
Most embarrassing performance moment:
Losing my pants onstage during "The King and I" in front of an audience of 2,000 people...as a middle schooler, and hearing the roars of laughter.
Something we wouldn’t know if you didn’t tell us:
If I'm not teaching or directing, I'm actually an intensely shy person. I'm most at peace composing music at my piano by candlelight, or cuddling on the couch with my singing dog Emrys the Cavalon while reading a book. In essence, I'm a Victorian eccentric living in the modern era.