Equally at home with orchestral, solo, and chamber music, Dr. Matthew McClung has performed with a wide variety of prestigious ensembles on four continents. He has performed with the Houston Grand Opera, the Hawaii Opera Theater, Sparkling City Light Opera, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Hong Kong, Houston, San Antonio, Honolulu, Austin, Arkansas, Lexington, Corpus Christi, Southeast Texas, Hanover New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Maui. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Alisa Weilerstein, the Percussion Group Cincinnati, the Tierkreis Percussion Ensemble, So Percussion, the Meehan Perkins Duo, Strike 3 Percussion, Elemental Percussion, Musiqa, the Houston Composers Alliance, the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, and others. As a soloist, he has been featured on the ChamberX and Dowling recital series in Houston, and with the Shepherd School Percussion Ensemble.
Recently the Houston Chronicle raved about his concerto performance with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, saying "McClung played stylishly and smartly … The performance sang with a distinctive joie de vivre." Dr. McClung and some of his students were recently featured on NPR's Performance Today (which broadcasts through 237 stations across the country) performing his marimba arrangement of Reir Llorando by Mariano Valverde.
A 2002 recipient of a Presser Award, Dr. McClung spent two months in Ghana, where he studied traditional drumming techniques with master drummers of the Ewe tribe. He also studied gyil (African xylophone) techniques with Kakraba Lobi, who is considered one of the ultimate virtuosi of the instrument.