It is challenging, getting Matthew Lottes to discuss his achievements.
The gifted musician and accomplished teacher is quick to deflect attention toward others, lauding the other gifted people with whom he collaborates. “I prefer to be away from the centre of attention, I’m more comfortable doing whatever I can do to make others look good,” he laughed as he spoke with THE EQUITY on Sunday.
His most recent sharing of limelight was at . . .
the run of three performances of “The Magician’s Nephew,” a radio play by C. S. Lewis. Lottes played background music for the Pontiac Community Players theatrical event.
Performing live ‘background music’ for a theatre production is a somewhat unusual situation to find oneself in. Not only did Lottes perform the music, but he wrote the score.
In order to compose successful theatrical effect music, a composer must help establish mood, elucidate narrative turns, provide thematic material for character development and also add aesthetic value. These are skills one doesn’t learn from a typical education with the neighbourhood piano teacher.
The baseline piano skills one must possess in order to create the ambient effects and accompanimental elements Lottes was playing are quite high. At “The Magician’s Nephew” performance, it was immediately apparent Lottes is not a casual, ‘weekend’ pianist. That said, despite his comfortable, confident relationship with the piano, he feels a greater affinity for the guitar: “I think guitar might be my preferred instrument,” he said. Picking up a ukulele with aplomb, his affinity for fretted string instruments is obvious.
However, as a school music teacher, he has also played, well, everything. He can sing, play alto recorder, dance, and has even tried his hand at acting. “That was challenging,” he said of the experience. “That was a bit outside my comfort zone.”
As a guitarist, Lottes has dabbled in some of the activities one might expect. “I’ve played in rock ‘n’ roll bands before,” he acknowledged. Again, however, his modest approach is evident: “I like the support roles,” he said. “I guess I just feel more comfortable playing the chord progressions, and not necessarily drawing attention to myself with flashy guitar solos,” he said.
Lottes did receive a fairly traditional start to his musical endeavours, taking classical piano and guitar lessons as a child. He has learned a lot from other sources since then, judging by his performance with the Pontiac Community Players. Besides raw technical ability, Lottes has a creative, improvisational quality to his music.
This flexibility and ability to think outside the box is a useful transferable skill, and it is coming in handy in his position at the Pontiac High School in Shawville, where he has been the music teacher since moving to the Pontiac a decade ago.
He has had to make quite a few changes and adaptations to his curriculum and classroom management procedures over the last two years, and his smiling, accommodating approach seems to be helping him adapt. “I’ve been trying to give my students more computer music composition skills for when they are online — it’s hard to rehearse band instruments in a virtual classroom.”
Lottes’ easy-going manner has gotten him where he is today, but it’s not exactly where he saw himself at the start of his journey. “My undergraduate degree wasn’t in music — I studied philosophy and math,” he confessed.
Matthew Lottes is demure and understated when discussing his achievements, but it is worth taking the time he needs to have him reveal his talents. Or some of them — it doesn’t take long to realize there is a lot to admire about Matthew Lottes.
