Photo credit: Josy Gonzalo

Mathew Arrellín (pronounced: A-rre-yín) is a composer and cellist from El Paso, Texas, currently based in Chicago. His music has been performed by the Mivos Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, ~Nois, Fonema Consort, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Low Frequency Trio, Dalia Chin, Ben Roidl-Ward, and the Chicago Composers Orchestra, among others. Mathew's work spans solo, chamber, and orchestral formats, and has been presented at festivals and institutions across the United States and abroad.

As an active painter, he has maintained a visual art practice alongside his music since childhood, frequently drawing on visual sources, among them "Overpainted Photographs," a flute concerto inspired by Gerhard Richter's series of the same name. He is the recipient of a 2023 General Commission from the Barlow Endowment for Musical Composition, two William T. Faricy Awards for excellence in composition from Northwestern, and Illinois Arts Council grants in 2021 and 2026. He was a 2025 Rome Prize finalist and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2026.

He holds a PhD in Music Composition and Technology from Northwestern University (2022), where he studied with Jay Alan Yim, Alex Mincek, and Hans Thomalla, and a bachelor's degree in theory/composition and cello performance from the University of New Mexico (2016), where he studied cello with David Schepps and composition with José-Luis Hurtado. He has taught courses at Northwestern University, including first year aural skills and music theory, class composition for majors and non-majors, and an interdisciplinary course in music and the visual arts. He has also given masterclasses and workshops in composition.