British composer Matthew Grouse is the winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2025. The young composer received the prestigious incentive prize for young music pioneers on Sunday, September 14th during the closing evening of Gaudeamus Festival 2025 in TivoliVredenburg Hertz in Utrecht.
The jury –consisting of composers Isabel Mundry, Yannis Kyriakides en Moritz Eggert– said about Grouse: “Matthew Grouse’s artistic identity is grounded in the transformation of the everyday and mundane into material for composition, with both precision and wit. His music moves between the absurd and the fragile with great conviction, combining humour, irony, and intellectual engagement in impressive compositional forms. To Put Words in My Mouth, his new work for Nadar, revealed a remarkable technical command across all media, while offering sharp social commentary on the realities of digital communication today. In ctrlY, he demonstrated striking control of large-scale form, inventing his own musical materials and instruments in the process. Between what one can call soft and hard concept driven work, Matthew creates a truly contemporary voice.”