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It began with visits to grandmother's house, when a young Matthew Lima banged on the old piano and begged his mom for lessons. It ended temporarily at age 13, when he started resenting the egg timer that ticked away the minutes left in his practice sessions, and decided instead to earn a science degree and enter the space program. But soon Lima, of New York City and Winthrop House, realized that "music is something I have to be doing." He took up piano again, began composition and jazz lessons, submitted scores to the Juilliard School's pre-college program, and eventually won a scholarship to attend.
But mysteriously, a Harvard application arrived, and Lima decided on a whim to fill it out. He took the application less seriously than most. "I wrote it by hand, and crossed out a lot," he remembers. "I wasn't trying to be rebellious, but I never really expected it to go anywhere." But after sending Harvard his compositions, he was accepted.
While continuing his studies in composition, theory, and musicianship, Lima has also explored astrophysics, German literature, and philosophy. But music remains at the core of his Harvard experience. He has collaborated with instrumentalists and vocalists on campus to perform his work. His senior thesis brings together Boston music groups and the Harvard music faculty for a composition uniting sixteenth- and twentieth-century instruments. He serves on the board of directors for the Harvard-Radcliffe Contemporary Music Ensemble, and also teaches music to Cambridge elementary-school students. "When one of my students and I finally played a duet together, I flashed back to the time when I was 10 and I played a duet with my teacher--that sort of connection is incredible," he says. "To be able to pass on something--even if just rudimentary pianistic technique--made my desire to teach definite. It's actually more of a calling."
"I've come a long way artistically," Lima says. "I don't think I could have done any more." But he will: in London next fall, where he will expand his thesis work at the Royal Academy of Music as a Marshall Scholar. Thereafter, he anticipates that teaching, lecturing, or conducting will supplement his future work in composition. "I think," he says, "I'd rather have autonomy than money."
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