Matt Finley

• Multi-instrumentalist Matt Finley has played professionally for 64 years and has performed and recorded with many of the finest jazz musicians in the world. He studied composition with Edgar Curtis, Director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. A CD of Matt's compositions, "Brazilian Wish" has garnered international recognition, and two of his compositions were finalists at the 2009 Los Angeles Music Awards. He is featured on eleven CDs released since 2006. In 2013, Matt orchestrated and performed four of his Brazilian jazz compositions in concert with the Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra. He was a soloist and composer in the North Country Jazz Project and led his own concert band, Rio JAZZ, for 31 years. He is Director of the Smithfield Chamber Orchestra for special services at the Smithfield Presbyterian Church in Amenia, NY. Matt is a retired professor of computer information systems and former dean of academic affairs at Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, NY, where he occasionally directed the brass choir and the jazz ensemble, and taught in four academic departments. He lives in Pine Plains, NY and Diamond Point, NY on Lake George.

  Press Info

• Feature article on Matt, reprinted courtesy of the Northern Dutchess News, Sept. 3, 2025  - Intimate Brazilian Jazz concert at The Smithfield Church by Matt Finley & Rio JAZZ