Mat Heighway - professional information

Mat was a music scholar at Dean Close School in Cheltenham, England, where he began his musical studies in earnest. He sang in many choirs and participated in many concerts and recordings, both chorally and as a soloist, singing tenor voice. He also learned the double bass and the piano. Leaving school, Matthew studied for four years at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where he studied double bass under Robin McGee and Duncan McTier, as well as singing. It was during this time that he first started to typeset music.

During his time at the Academy, Mat worked as a freelance musician, both in London and in his native county of Gloucestershire, being active as a double bassist, tenor, and bass guitarist. He also started up Meticulous Printed Music Production while he was studying at the Academy, as well as becoming a qualified teacher of double bass in 1999. Mat now lives in Bicester, England, and wears many musical 'hats': as well as being a full-time freelance bassist, he runs The Meticulous Organisation part-time, as well as singing as a freelancer. He has sung all over the country and parts of Europe, as well as recording for CDs and BBC Radio. Mat is also experienced in jazz, blues (with Mojo Bones Blues Band since 2003) and session recording.

Mat's current work is mainly in theatre, including Oklahoma! (UK National Tour), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (UK Tour), Fiddler on the Roof (UK Tour), Disney's Beauty and the Beast (UK Tour), High Society (UK Tour), The King & I (UK Tour), The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), West Side Story (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester), Follies (Royal Theatre, Northampton), Grease, Sweet Charity, A Chorus Line, and Hello Dolly!, as well as 'depping' work on Aspects of Love (UK Tour), My Fair Lady (UK Tour), The King & I (UK Tour), Thoroughly Modern Mille (UK Tour), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium), and Copacabana (UK Tour). Work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes: The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Newcastle and Novello Theatre, West End), the Comedies Season transfer (Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors) (Novello) which included on-stage work, the Spanish Golden Age Season transfer (House of Desires and Pedro, the Great Pretender) (Playhouse Theatre, West End) which included on-stage work and some singing, Beauty and the Beast (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford), and depping work on Love's Labour's Lost (The Courtyard, Stratford), Merry Wives - The Musical (RST), Much Ado About Nothing (Novello), and Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors (RST).

Mat's classical double bass work includes such groups as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Corelli Ensemble and Corelli Chamber Orchestra, the Bochmann Ensemble, the National Musicians Symphony Orchestra, Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Southern Festival Orchestra, EC4 Orchestra, Wolverhampton Symphony Orchestra, Bergamo Ensemble, Philharmonia Orchestra (experience scheme), Albemarle Orchestra, Oxford Philomusica, Cheltenham Chamber Orchestra, Aminta Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra of the Royal Borough, as well as other work in London and the South of England. Mat has also toured in France, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Mat lives in Bicester with his wife Emily Eastmond and a large collection of musical instruments, and is currently the bassist in the UK national tour of Oklahoma! for UK Productions.

More info:

• Information on Mat's teaching

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• Mat's full CV (resumé)



• Mat's double bass CV (resumé)



• Mat's double bass programme biography