Michael Kento Matsuno is a flutist whose work traverses the classical canon, contemporary music, improvisation, music psychology, and 20th-century history. He can be heard performing throughout Southern California and holds positions as lecturer at Chapman University and flute studio instructor at CalArts and Pierce College.
Michael has appeared with a wide range of ensembles throughout the US, including the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, ECHOI, Red Fish Blue Fish, San Diego Symphony, Slee Sinfonietta, [Switch~Ensemble], and Wild Up. He has been featured as a guest artist at the Center for 21 st Century Music at SUNY Buffalo, Harvard University, Jacaranda Music, June in Buffalo, Monday Evening Concerts, and Neofonía Festival de Música Nueva Ensenada. Michael has also performed his own solo compositions, which explore long forms and emergent musical structures in physical decay, on experimental series such as Weirdo Night, High Desert Soundings, and La Rara Noche.
As a researcher, Michael is concerned with human relationships to music and their narratives. His dissertation is a biography of the California E.A.R. Unit (1981-2012), one of Los Angeles’ first standalone groups dedicated to avant-garde chamber music. It examines institutional developments in Los Angeles beginning in the 1980s, including the creation of a contemporary music curriculum at CalArts. Michael also published an original study in Psychology of Music exploring personalized music-listening strategies by autistic adults. His other writing has appeared in Naxos Musicology International and Now That’s What I Call Poetry. Most recently, Michael served as lead editor for Letters to Home: Art and Writing by Nikkei LGBTQ+ and Allies, a volume of community reflections on acceptance and belonging, self-published by Okaeri.
Michael is a graduate of UC San Diego (MA, DMA) and the University of Southern California (BM). He gratefully received mentorship from Nadine Asin, Anthony Burr, John Fonville, Jann Pasler, and Jim Walker.