Matthews be­gan his mu­sic­al stu­dies at age four, on pi­a­no. At age eight, he be­gan trum­pet stu­dy with the for­mer first chair of the Phil­a­del­phia Or­ches­tra. Mat­thews be­gan his or­gan stu­dies at the age 12, and took his first church or­gan­ist po­si­tion at age 14. Hav­ing re­ceived a Phil­a­del­phia Board of Ed­u­ca­tion mu­sic schol­ar­ship, he did his un­der­grad­u­ate work in Church Mu­sic and Or­gan at West­min­ster Choir Coll­ege, where he grad­u­at­ed mag­na cum laude and re­ceived both the Sen­ior Class Con­duct­ing Award and the Chris­tian Lead­er­ship Award. Dur­ing this time, he rep­re­sent­ed the Prince­ton ar­ea coll­ege com­mun­i­ty at the an­nu­al Pre­si­den­tial Pray­er Break­fast in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Matthews re­ceived the Mas­ter of Mu­sic de­gree in Chor­al Con­duct­ing from Tem­ple Un­i­ver­si­ty. At the age of 22, he was asked to con­duct the Je­ru­sa­lem Cham­ber Or­ches­tra for a re­cord­ing pro­ject in Tel Aviv, Is­ra­el. He al­so con­duct­ed the na­tion­al tour of this pro­ject through­out ma­jor ci­ties in the Unit­ed States the fol­low­ing year.

In 1976, at age 23, Mat­thews was in­vit­ed to join the fa­cul­ty of Ny­ack Coll­ege in Nyack, New York as the Di­rect­or of Chor­al Ac­ti­vi­ties. In 1981, he re­ceived his Doc­tor of Mu­sic­al Arts de­gree from Combs Coll­ege of Mu­sic in Com­po­si­tion with an em­pha­sis in Or­ches­tral Con­duct­ing. Twice, he was the guest con­duct­or at the an­nu­al per­form­ance of Mes­si­ah at West Point Cha­pel, fea­tur­ing a com­bined com­mun­i­ty chor­us of 300 sing­ers with pro­fess­ion­al or­ches­tra. In 1980, Mat­thews ac­cept­ed the post of Or­gan­ist-Mu­sic Di­rect­or of Cal­va­ry Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Wil­low Grove, Penn­syl­van­ia. In 2005, he ac­cepte­d the call of Pas­tor of Wor­ship Arts at Church of the Sav­iour in Wayne, Penn­syl­van­ia, where he was pre­sid­ing as of 2008. From 1982-92, Mat­thews was the Chair of the De­part­ment of Mu­sic at Phil­a­del­phia Bib­li­cal Un­i­ver­si­ty. Since 1992, Mat­thews has been Pro­fess­or of Mu­sic and Di­rect­or of Mu­sic Pro­grams at Eas­tern Un­i­ver­si­ty. He is the Chair of the Fine and Per­form­ing Arts Di­vi­sion and Chair of the Mu­sic De­part­ment. In ad­di­tion to his un­i­ver­si­ty and church posts, Matthews con­ducts the Ju­bi­la­te Deo Chor­ale and Or­ches­tra of New Jer­sey, a 75-voice au­di­tioned chora­le and a 65-piece pro­fess­ion­al or­ches­tra, per­form­ing sac­red and class­ic­al chor­al and or­ches­tral mu­sic. He is a com­miss­ion­ed and pub­lished com­pos­er, and is act­ive in coach­ing, ac­com­pa­ny­ing and cham­ber mu­sic.

Matthews was a Tho­mas F. Sta­ley Foun­da­tion lec­tur­er/ar­tist, and serves on sev­er­al pro­fess­ion­al and de­nom­in­a­tion­al boards and task forc­es. He per­forms reg­u­lar­ly with his bro­ther, Rev. Dr. Gary Mat­thews, in con­certs and work­shops through­out the Unit­ed States and Ca­na­da. They have re­leased six re­cord­ings of his­tor­ic and con­temp­o­ra­ry church mu­sic.

Matthews holds Choir Mas­ter and Col­league cer­ti­fi­ca­tions with the Amer­i­can Guild of Or­gan­ists and com­pleted a four-year fa­cul­ty de­vel­op­ment grant for jazz stu­dy. He is list­ed in num­ero­us in­ter­na­tion­al and na­tion­al ci­vic and pro­fess­ion­al Who’s Who pub­li­ca­tions.

1. Hutchby
2. Keck
3. Krewson
4. Langhorne
5. Willow Grove
6. Wilmington