Matthew felt that rock was his life until he entered the University of Pittsburgh Jazz department at age 18. He studied with Joe Negri and Nathan Davis, and it changed his perspective. "It [jazz] was so challenging. It gave me something new to play. The rock was fun, but it was getting boring." He also studies with new composer Eric Moe. This man, he says, changed his life. "Dr. Moe said that I could do anything with music, but the main thing is not to be closed minded." In 1994, Matt graduated from the University with a B.A. in Jazz.

With all of his formal training, he decided to further his studies at Carnegie Mellon University. "I was taking some education courses, but I took some classical lessons as well, and it gave me a new perspective." He soon found something. He started to play classical guitar, and felt the instrument was confining from a jazz point of view and needed new inspiration. "Joe taught me to be a soloist, but playing the jazz chord melody so unidirectional from a musical aspect, all the sounds and notes moved in the same direction. I liked how piano players could do two and three different ideas at once. Classical guitar had the voicing, and it had the motion I was looking for." This is what the classical guitar introduced to him.

"How do I combine all of these ideas?" is what Matthew thought to himself. At this point, he was playing at jam sessions and playing professionally as well as teaching privately. He thought that classical guitar lacked modernism, and jazz chord melody was too unidirectional. "I didn't know what to do, but the answer was right in front of me. Then it happened. I changed the tuning of the instrument." He had successfully combined the ideas of jazz and classical, and soon recorded his first solo demo named Orbit.

Matthew Korbanic is a fine guitarist and musician. He is very skilled and well trained. He spent years of studying and solving one problem: "I needed to do what I heard in my head." His studies at Pitt introduced him to music, but problem solving brought him to this point in his career. What does the future hold for him? "Hopefully a record deal, so I can expand my musical horizons."

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