Making architectural music to feel through your body as well as your ears. Here sonic fishing on the rio Douro for Opera FiXi. Image Carlos Costa. 2013.

Kaffe Matthews was born in Essex, England and lives and works in London.

Since 1990 she has been making and performing new electro-acoustic music worldwide with a variety of things and places such as violin, theremin, Scottish weather, desert stretched wires, NASA scientists, melting ice in Quebec and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, she has completed three Sky Gazer chairs and vinyl album for ‘Yird, Muin, Starn,’ a vital spark collaboration with Mandy McIntosh, in the Galloway Forest, Scotland.

Works showing currently include 3D audio hammerhead shark installation, ‘You might come out of the water every time singing‘, Lisbon and she is now making  Opera FiXi Porto opening May 25th 2013.  In 2012 ‘Where are the wild ones?‘ made a mid-stage performance with the Salmon Band, soloist, choir, projected two screen score and live multichannel accompaniment at the Bridges festival, Newcastle and bicycle opera for Ghent “The swamp that was….” ran from September 1st -November 3rd 2012.

Acknowledged as a pioneer in the field of electronic improvisation and live composition, Kaffe has released 6 solo  CD’s on the label Annette Works, and continues to direct vibratory interface design project music for bodies.

Recent works include: ‘Vitula physicata’  16 channel violin work for vibrating giant violin, audiorama, Stockholm; The Empty Pot Fills,(2011), 6 channel work for the Minka House, Kew Gardens; Where are the Wild Ones?(2010), 12 channel composition, The Sage, AV Festival 10; Fathers (2009), AV multi-channel opera with the Lappetites;  In clean air we fly(2009), bicycle powered 8 channel installation for London’s Gillett Sq; The Marvelo Project(2008), Folkestone Sculpture Triennial; Sonic Bed_Marfa(2008), Texas; Sonic Bench_Mexico (2007), Laboratorio Arte Alameda Mexico City, 2007; Body Abiding, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Glasgow ; Sonic Bed_Shanghai,(2006) Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2006; This is for you,(2005) work for chaise longue, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2005; Three Crosses of Queensbridge, work for bicycles + radios, Drawing Room, London, 2005; No-one here but us chickens, 2005 The Starr auditorium, TATE Modern, London, UK, 2005.

Her 2004 collaboration Weightless Animals was awarded a BAFTA, she received a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship  in 2005 and an Award of Distinction, Prix Ars Electronica 2006 for the work Sonic Bed_London. In February 2006 she was made an Honorary Professor of Music, Shanghai Music Conservatory, China and in 2009, a patron of the Galapagos shark conservation society.

Background.    Playing classical violin from the age of 7, singing in one band but getting further with bass and drums in the next, in 1985 she discovered electricity and listening and with that, her current trajectory. Since then, acid house engineering, electrically reconstructing the violin, Distinction for a Masters in Music Technology, introducing and running a Performance Technology course at Dartington College of Arts, establishing label Annette Works and in 2009 launching the audio research lab, AudRey in London’s east End.  She also set up a wholefood collective and did a Zoology Hons degree along the way.

2013