About
Matt Issa-Abbas is a multiracial artist whose work epitomizes fusion. From orchestral to electronic, punk to folk, Eastern to Western, he draws on diverse influences creating cathartic, universal experiences that transcend genre. His practice centers on scoring spaces and movement—architecture, installations, runway fashion, dance, and performance art—crafting interactive worlds where sound illuminates form and motion.
His recent score for the Northeastern University Fashion Society’s spring show Metamorphosis was widely praised. Incorporating the Vietnamese folk song Bắc Kim Thang, a melody often sung to children, one audience member remarked it “gave me goosebumps and sent tears to my eyes.” The show featured four sections—Origin, Cocoon, Emergence, and Rebirth—each with its own soundscape, performed live by Matt, creating an otherworldly, immersive experience.
Matt is currently developing his debut album, blending the raw energy of hardcore rock with the expansiveness of orchestral textures. Known for unconventional instrumentation and blending unexpected sounds—such as oboe, electric cello, drumset, and scream vocals on his track Imagination—he emphasizes quality and intentionality over speed of release, giving each composition the proper time to mature.
Beyond his solo work, Matt is the founder, CEO, and artistic director of Art Fart, a multimedia art company uniting artists across sound, visual, and movement disciplines. Structured as both a non-profit (Art Fart Foundation) and a for-profit (Art Fart Creative Works), the organization produces large-scale interdisciplinary projects infused with the mission of spotlighting social and environmental issues. The company’s debut show is planned for spring 2026.
Matt’s relationship with music began early: his mother played Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart while he was still in the womb. He started piano lessons at six, later moving to cello, before discovering his passion for baritone saxophone in high school—now his principal instrument as a World Tour Scholar at Berklee College of Music. Currently, Matt studies professional music with concentrations in composition and electronic performance, alongside minors in psychology and acoustics/electronics, mixing various curricula to fit his needs as an electroacoustic composer with a focus on the science of sound. His instrumental studies there have also included flute, oboe, clarinet, Akai EWI, violin, viola, guitar, and voice, informing his compositions with an intimate understanding of the demands of their mechanisms and their expressive possibilities. As a multi-instrumentalist, Matt has developed a unique playing style that fuses the approach to one instrument with the timbre of another (such as playing bari sax like a cello, or cello like a guitar).
Outside of performance, Matt explores the intersection of music and science. As an intern at Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, he supports the development of auditory stimuli for neuroscience research, contributing to studies on disordered hearing and brain function. He is particularly fascinated by how urban soundscapes shape cognition and health, with long-term plans to pursue graduate research in auditory neuroscience and ecoacoustics. His vision is to unite art and science, creating works inspired by cutting-edge data and encountered sonic environments. As a composer, his art is heavily influenced by the science of sound and its perception, leading his works to be constructed not just by feel, but by quantifiable details. Additionally, as an “experimentalist” he applies a similar philosophy to that of a scientist in his approach to art-making. For example, when playing acoustic instruments with effects, he often will hypothesize how an instrument’s sound may be transformed by the electronics, then take calculated measures to reach the resulting sound, and finally analyze the resulting sound against his hypothesis.