A recipient of two consecutive Palmer-Dixon Prizes for best composition presented by The Juilliard School, composer Mathew Fuerst has also received numerous ASCAP awards and was recently a finalist in the Whitaker Competition, presented by the American Composers Orchestra.

Fuerst's works have been performed in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, New York State Theatre, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University, as well as Dallas, Houston, Rochester, Montreal, Paris, Budapest, Scotland, and Hong Kong by such world-renowned artists as Ilya Gringolts and Jasper Wood.

Recent commissions include New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, where he collaborated with Principal Dancer Albert Evans, writing the Clarinet Quartet.  The ballet sparked the interest of the Washington Ballet, which performed it during their Love: 7x7 series.  It was so successful that it was immediately featured by New York City Ballet the following season.

Equally at home as a pianist, Fuerst gave the world premiere of his own Concertino for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, a work commissioned by the Interlochen Academy for the Arts, in a live concert broadcast nationally on NPR.  He has appeared as soloist performing his own work with the Eastman Philharmonic under the Alan Pierson.  While a student at the summer festival at the prestigious La Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he studied with Samuel Adler, he performed his Three Etudes for piano.

Mathew Fuerst began piano lessons at the age of seven with Larry Dieffenbach in Geneva, IL and began composing three years later.  He holds a Bachelor's Degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with David Liptak, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, Sydney Hodkinson, and Augusta Read Thomas, and piano with Alan Feinberg.  He holds Master's and Doctorate degrees in Composition from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Beaser and John Corigliano.

Fuerst currently is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Hillsdale College where he teaches theory and composition.