FULL BIO
MATTHEW DELLA POLLA
Producer/Musical Director/Composer/Conductor
Short Bio:
Matthew Della Polla has excelled in virtually every area of music production. Throughout his award winning career, Matthew has worked as a music director, show director, producer, conductor, arranger, synth programmer, and scoring consultant for many internationally known renowned artist such as Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Sting, Josh Groban, Babyface just to name a few. See list for full credits.
He has done work for all the major record labels as well as film studios such as Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, IMAX Films, all four American major national broadcast television networks, MTV, PBS, major cable networks.
Live Concerts and Events:
After many years of working on films and records, Matthew also directed his talents to the live performance world, and has since been doing non-stop shows throughout Asia, North America, Russia and Europe. Currently Matthew enjoys the best of both worlds, creating world class projects for both public and private events, both in the studio and in the live concert world.
Matthew has a long-term working relationship with record producer David Foster, with duties in various capacities including music/show/production director, co-producing the musical portion of events, conducting live shows, arranging charts for shows, direct interaction with artists to prepare productions and musical needs for their performances, rehearsing orchestras, choirs and rhythm sections, supervising all music and production preparation for the show, stage designs, show flows, schedules, takedowns, etc. Together Matthew and David have done hundreds of shows, including corporate events for fortune 500 companies, high end private events, charity events, and concerts all over the world—working in traditional public venues to the most unusual private production circumstances.
Recordings:
Matthew has also worked numerous times with record producers such as David Foster, Walter Afanasieff, Babyface and Humberto Gatica, etc., as well as the top recording and mixing engineers in both record production and film production, and was one of the first people in Hollywood to be credited as a film music producer.
Matthew has worked with world-class musicians such as Greg Phillinganes, Nathan East, John “JR” Robinson, Dean Parks, Michael Thompson, Randy Waldman, and many other “A” list Los Angeles-based musicians. He has worked many times in studios such as the Streisand Scoring Stage (formerly Sony Scoring Stage, Culver City, CA), Abbey Road Studios in London, The Newman Scoring Stage (Fox Scoring Stage), Paramount Stage M for Scoring, Todd A/O Scoring, Capitol Studios, O’ Henry Studios, Ocean Way, The Record Plant, Cello Studios, Chartmaker Studios, 143 Records, Signet Sound, The Hit Factory NYC, Sony Studios Miami, AudioGenia Estudios and Sacramento Studios in Alicante, Spain.
Film Credits:
Co-Produced and or Scoring and Mix Consultant / Synth Programming
Recently Matthew worked with Maestro Ennio Morrione on the Dolby Atmos recordings of The Hateful Eight, gaining the Maestro’s praise by re-orchestrating sections of the film’s soundtrack for this special recording at Abbey Road Studios, without any changes proposed from Maestro Morriocone.
For many years, Matthew has worked closely with film composer, arranger, and conductor William Ross, co-producing film scores, synth programming, recording, as well as editing and mixing music for films and soundtracks. He also designed and maintained William’s studio. Matthew has been involved in every aspect of recording from creating a demo for a job to delivering final mixes at the end of the project. He also participated in hundreds of recording sessions in various capacities.
Matthew has worked with orchestras such as the Hollywood Film Orchestra (hundreds of times on films and albums), the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony and many orchestras in Los Angeles, London, New York, Las Vegas, and Miami for recordings and live shows.
Education:
Matthew earned a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance, as well as two Bachelor Degrees: one in Music Theory and the other in Music Composition from Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, PA. In addition, he has had conservatory training at The Neupauer Conservatory of Music, Philadelphia, PA, with Dr. Jacob Neupauer (music theory), Romeo Cascarino (orchestrations ), and Julliard graduates, Dr. William Schimmell (composition) and Dr. Anthony Weigand (piano)—all by the age of 23. His education also includes film scoring classes I & II at UCLA and an audio engineering diploma from Music Lab in Hollywood, CA, as well as private conducting lessons with various teachers in Philadelphia and Hollywood.