Matthew James Noone

“He lifts the listener to a different plane of existence” (Folk Radio UK)

“nothing short of pure magic” (Hot Press Magazine)

Matthew James Noone is an Australian-Irish ex-indie rocker, improviser, composer and performer of the 25 stringed lute called sarode. After beginning his musical career as a guitarist and drummer in Brisbane and Sydney in the mid 90s, Matthew fell in love with the sarode during a trip to India in 2003. He has studied North Indian Classical music for over a decade with Sougata Roy Chowdhury in Kolkata and more recently with UK based sarodiya, K. Sridhar. He has performed Indian classical music across the globe and composes in a diverse range of disciplines ranging from Irish traditional music, free improvisation and contemporary electroacoustic music.

He has collaborated with a host of international artists such as Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill, Liam O Maonlai, Lisa Hanigan,Steve Cooney, Jiggy, K. Subramaniam, Debojyoti Sanyal, Catherine Sikora, Sean Mac Erlaine, Sean Tyrell and the Irish Gamelan Orchestra.  He has released two albums with percussionist Tommy Hayes (An Tara) and three solo albums of contemporary material using sarode using loops, feedback, voice, electronics and ukulele.He plays two unique custom made hybrid sarodes. The first was designed particularly for playing Irish traditional music and the second is an innovative electroacoustic 'dream' sarode for exploring new composition.