Matt LaRocca

Matt LaRocca is a composer, performer, and educator who you are just as likely to see playing with a band in a dive bar as conducting an orchestra. He is on the composition and theory faculty at the University of Vermont and is the Artistic Director of the Champlain Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also the Executive Director of Music-COMP, an organization that teaches composition to students throughout the country by pairing them with professional composers as mentors. Committed to new music and innovation, LaRocca loves bringing classical music to new audiences and new spaces through his work as the curator of the VSO’s Jukebox concert series. 

As a musician growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, LaRocca feels equally at home in both the rock and classical worlds. His classical work has been commissioned by groups such as the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Youth Symphony and the Great Falls Symphony Orchestra, and from 2007-2008 he was the Faculty Composer in Residence for the Montana State University Symphony. TV and film credits include music for PBS and the British Lung Foundation, and he also works as a writer and arranger for rock and electronic bands. Artistic residencies include an expedition to the high arctic through The Arctic Circle organization and composition/improvisation teaching residencies at schools throughout New England and California. LaRocca frequently performs as a violist and guitarist in classical, rock and improvisation ensembles.

LaRocca lives in Duxbury with his wife Heather, and their children Jasper, Sawyer, and Macy. He holds degrees in chemistry and music from Middlebury College and a doctorate in music composition from Boston University.