Matthew McLachlan was born in 2000 and started piano lessons with his father in 2008. Aged 11 he passed grade 8 and entered Wells Cathedral School as a specialist musician, studying with John Byrne. After two years he entered Chetham’s in Manchester where he now studies piano with Dina Parakhina and Cello with Gill Thoday.
After gaining the ATCL and LTCL recital diplomas with distinction in 2014 and 2015, Matthew was awarded the FTCL in 2016. This followed winning third prize in the senior division of the first Scottish International Youth Prize Competition, held at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in July 2016. In 2014 Matthew’s performance of Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto was commended in the Chetham’s Concerto competition and he was also a prizewinner at the 2014 Mazovia Chopin Festival in Poland. As a result of this performance, he was chosen to perform a solo recital at the 2015 World Piano Teachers’ Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia. In 2016 Matthew gave many recitals and was a finalist in the Chetham’s Beethoven Piano Competition for the second year running.
During the 2016-17 season he performed Beethoven’s First Concerto seven times, including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in Devon, Lanzarote and Wales. He was awarded first prize in the Chetham’s Senior Bach competition and performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in the Paderewski Festival in
Poland. Also in 2017 he toured with his family in a series of recitals featuring Brahms’ Sonata no. 1 in C major.
In the past year he has completed his A levels whilst continuing a busy performing schedule ,including performances of Bartok’s ‘Contrasts’ for clarinet, violin and piano as well as three performances of Mozart’s 13th concerto (in Trieste, Haddington and Rhyl) and recitals featuring Chopin’s great F minor Fantasy in Lanzarote and at the RNCM in Manchester. Matthew formally finished studies at Chetham’s school of Music only last week, and plans to have a gap year before continuing studies at a conservatoire in Europe. Away from music Matthew is a keen footballer, playing for Hazel Grove United. He is also very interested in modern languages.