Associate Professor
Music, Dept of
Covington Center for VPA 106
Box 6968
D.M., M.M., Indiana University; B.M., Florida State University
Assistant Professor of Music
"Cataldi wasn't your typical classically trained pianist; he was a rockstar and he brought the house down."
Dr. Matthew Cataldi has enjoyed a wildly versatile career as a soloist, collaborative artist, conductor, composer, and educator. He holds a BM from Florida State University as well as MM and DM degrees in Piano Performance and Literature from Indiana University, where he studied with Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen.
As a performer, he has appeared on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in addition to many other venues across the globe. He gave his orchestral debut as a teenager playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3 and has recorded a documentary CD of Spanish and Latin American piano music which was accompanied by an international concert and lecture tour. He is also an experienced conductor and musical director in the theatre world, having premiered several new works in New York City in collaboration with Tony Award winning Broadway artists.
As a composer and arranger, he enjoys bridging the classical and popular worlds, creating and presenting exciting new music that caters to his unique background and interests. Recent compositions and premiers include: “Variations and Fugue on a theme by Led Zeppelin” - a classical set of variations on the iconic rock song “Stairway to Heaven”, “Hail to the King” - a virtuosic medley of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits, “24 Preludes in Popular Style after Chopin” - a transcription project that arranges all of Chopin’s Op. 28 Preludes in a variety of popular genres which was released on Albany Records in 2022, and his most recent ongoing project, “Broadway Etudes for the Left Hand” – a collection of studies for the left hand based on popular tunes from the Broadway canon.
As an educator, he is active on the local, regional, and national research and pedagogy stages. He has served multiple terms as president of the Highlands Chapter of the Virginia Music Teachers Association where he has organized and run festivals for local piano students and has presented on multiple occasions for the Music Teachers National Association annual conference on topics including improvisation and creativity. He is frequently invited as an adjudicator for competitions and to present workshops and masterclasses for students across the country. His own students have been active and visible on the national stage as well, being invited to speak on research panels and presenting for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, and have been accepted into graduate studies at New York University and the Royal Conservatory of Scotland. His writings have been published by the College Music Society and the American Music Teacher.
Dr. Cataldi currently serves as Director of Piano Studies and Associate Professor of Piano at Radford University in Radford, Virginia, where he was awarded the Dalton Eminent Scholar Rising Star award - a university-wide award for creative scholarship that recognizes faculty with distinguished international reputations in their discipline.