Matthew Slayton’s (b. 1988) compositions reflect his fascination with biological and linguistic systems, where multiple lines and levels operate simultaneously. He conducts research on the cognitive neuroscience of creative interactions and semantic cognition. His goal is to understand how interacting people establish and maintain context in real-time such that real-time associations become meaningful conventions — how form is established in the moment, and how these relationships are represented in the brain. His work has been performed around the country, has been used in documentary films and video game scores, and was featured at the Sō Percussion Summer Institute in 2017. He graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he studied with Elinor Armer, and has neurolinguistics and philosophy degrees from Duke University and the University of Chicago where he additionally studied composition with Marta Ptaszynska. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University.
