School of Music - Music and Change Visiting Artist
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A dynamic violinist and entrepreneur, Stephanie Matthews is a modern-day citizen artist championing artistic excellence and social consciousness. She is the co-founder of the Re-Collective Orchestra, an all-black orchestra dedicated to raising the visibility and profile of black musicians and to present culturally relevant work to engage diverse audiences. Matthews is the former director of artist development for the Sphinx Organization, cultivating the careers of some of the nation's top Black and Latino artists through professional development initiatives, including the Sphinx Competition, Sphinx Soloist Program, and the Sphinx Virtuosi tour. She has served as the assistant dean and violin faculty with the Sphinx Performance Academy and served as artist in residence at the National Academy of Performing Arts in Trinidad and Tobago.
As an entrepreneur, Matthews is owner and creative director of StringCandy, an entertainment company that specializes in creative consulting, original arrangements and transcriptions, and musician staffing for live performances, recordings, TV/film, and tour placements. StringCandy musicians have made appearances on popular television and award shows and have worked with a wide variety of recording and performing artists across various genres of music.
Matthews has written, recorded and contributed to various music, television, and film projects. Recent projects include Da 5 Bloods (2020), Mulan (2020), Tenet (2020), Frozen 2 (2019), The Mandalorian (2019), The Lion King (2019), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), and When They See Us (2019). As the founder and creative director of StringCandy, she has engaged musicians throughout the US, Europe, the Middle East and Australia for various tours, music festivals and award shows. She recently hired an all-black, all-female orchestra to perform with Lizzo for the opening act of the 62nd GRAMMY Awards. Her work has also been featured on the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, European Music Awards, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, VH1 Storytellers, the BET Awards and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She has collaborated with many notable mainstream performing and recording artists including Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, John Legend, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys, Camilla Cabello, Justin Timberlake, Lauryn Hill, Pharrell, H.E.R., and Bastille.
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