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This project was made possible by funding through the Canadian Culture Online Strategy and the Heritage Policy Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Canadian Heritage

Matt Dusk

Biography

MATTHEW (MATT) AARON DUSK (vocalist) was born on November 19, 1978 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was accepted into the famed St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto at the age of seven, remaining there for the next 11 years. Although in the early years, Dusk originally performed primarily opera and classical music, his musical focus undertook new directions when, as a 17-year-old, he was exposed to the music of singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett.

He studied economics at York University in Toronto for a year, but switched to a Bachelor of Fine Arts program in 1999 to allow full-time pursuit of jazz and pop music studies, graduating with an Honors Degree in music in 2002.

Dusk recorded four independent CDs before securing a record deal with Decca in 2003, and his performing career really took off In 2004 when he was invited to perform as in-house entertainer at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas throughout the filming of the reality TV show "The Casino" (Fox TV). His hit debut album, Two Shots, was released in 2004, followed up with his Peace On Earth holiday recording in late 2005. He recorded his Back in Town (Capitol Records) album with a 58-piece orchestra in Los Angeles in early 2006, and released it later that year. in 2009, he released an album entitled Good News.

The Matt Dusk Quintet performed in concert during the “Sound of Toronto Jazz” Series at the Ontario Science Centre on January 6, 2003.

Matt released, My Funny Valentine: The Chet Baker Songbook in 2013. The album wsa nominated for a JUNO award in 2014.

Awards:
1998 - won the Canadian National Exhibition’s Rising Star Competition, beating out 654 contestants.
2001 - awarded York Univeristy’s Oscar Peterson Scholarship
2007 - his single “Back In Town” climbed to #1 in October in Japan, making him the first male jazz artist in Japanese history to reach #1 on the Japanese radio pop charts.
2014 - JUNO nomination for 'Vocal Jazz Album' for My Funny Valentine: The Chet Baker Songbook
 

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