“Matthew Cardinal practices in composition, scoring and sound design. Through these, he creates moving and evocative musical landscapes. His art centres the relationship between society and nature and the harmoniousness and, at times, contentiousness of that relationship. His recent, emerging experimental and collaborative practices are quickly gaining a national reputation amongst presenters and collaboration-spirited artists.”
— 2026 Emerging Artist Jury
– Emerging Artist adjudicators
Matthew Cardinal is a musician and artist in Edmonton performing as a solo artist/composer and as a member of several music ensembles. As composer, he has provided scores for a large, diverse range of projects, including work for the National Film Board of Canada, television, public service announcements, independent films, animation, and art installations. He has been commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council, Indigenous Tourism Alberta, The Globe & Mail, and Travel Alberta.
In 2020 his band nêhiyawak’s album was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, nominated for the Juno Award for Indigenous Album of the Year and won the Edmonton Music Prize. The same year, Cardinal’s solo album “Asterisms” was released on Arts & Crafts, and later performed in full at MUTEK Montreal.
Cardinal uses a combination of analogue recording and mixing techniques, along with digital processing and sampling, to create a uniquely intimate, blissful sound. By layering and accumulating sounds and textures, his compositions often function as a personal record.
As a visual artist, he works primarily with film for still photography and infrared and standard digital cameras for video. He is also beginning to explore Super 8 film. Cardinal’s experiments with obsolete photographic techniques to extract a hazy, dreamy aesthetic from his urban surroundings. The Edmonton of his photos is in soft focus, populated only by hares and wildflowers.
Matthew Cardinal represents the best aspects of the progressive arts scene in Alberta. As a solo performer, mainly in the genre of analog synthesizers performance, he unfailingly enthralls audiences with brilliant improvised and composed sets. There is an assured, original mastery of the complex tools involved, but there is always a strong sense of the electronics being at the service of a distinct musical personality, convincing in and of itself, yet clearly hinting at tremendous potential to grow and mature.
Dr. Ian Crutchley
Artistic Director, New Music Edmonton
