New York based Australian composer/lyricist, writer and performer Matthew Lee Robinson has won the UTAS Stephen Schwartz Songwriting Award, the Pratt Prize for Music Theatre, the Australia Council Music Fellowship and been nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work. He is a Churchill Fellow, prior Peer of the Australia Council for the Arts, and has been a writer in residence at the Goodspeed Johnny Mercer Writers Colony.
In the animation space, an original animated musical feature film of Matthew’s was acquired by DreamWorks Animation, and he has previously collaborated with Big Serious Studios, led by Happy Feet cinematographer David Peers, to create music and lyrics for an animated TV series in development.
For the stage, Matthew is the composer/lyricist and co-book writer of ATLANTIS (Virginia Repertory Theatre), directed by Tony nominee Kristin Hanggi, and Happy People, which has recently attached a Broadway producing team under the helm of a Broadway director yet to be announced. Matthew is also the composer/lyricist of The Magic School Bus (TheaterWorksUSA), which has been touring the U.S. for eight years; the five-time Helpmann-nominated musical Metro Street (State Theatre Company of South Australia, Daegu International Musical Festival); and Sing On Through Tomorrow (Neil Gooding Productions).
Robinson's music has been heard in concert at Carnegie Hall, Broadway’s Future Songbook Series, Goodspeed Musicals, the iTheatrics Junior Theater Festival (Atlanta), the Junior Thespian Festival (Dallas keynote speaker), Ars Nova NYC, and at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He has created songs for the Emmy-nominated television series Dance Academy and for the live events of Coca-Cola, Nintendo, Bosch, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Nokia Siemens Networks, and the Australian Open Tennis Championships.
A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, his on-screen acting credits include the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks teleseries The Pacific, the Fox 8 reality series The Singing Office, guest roles on Stingers and Blue Heelers, and appearing opposite Mary Tyler Moore in the telemovie A Most Deadly Family. On stage, he has performed three roles for Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House: Freddy Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady, Henrik in A Little Night Music and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance. Matthew also appeared in the title role in Pippin (Peter Cousens' Kookaburra), Hortensio in Kiss Me, Kate (The Production Company), Teague in the World Premiere of the Australian play God's Last Acre (Playbox), and the original Australian cast of MAMMA MIA!.
Robinson is a musical theatre educator and Co-Founder of performing arts training company EQ Endeavours. He has led musical theatre and vocal workshops for various institutions, including the Arthur Miller Foundation Fellows Program, the New York City Department of Education, Broadway Dreams, Open Jar Institute, the Educational Theatre Association, and various colleges throughout the world. His music currently appears in the published and extended works for the Australian Music Examinations Board Musical Theatre syllabus.