Paul Mathews is Professor and Associate Dean for Conservatory Faculty and Education at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Trained as a composer, his published scholarship concerns orchestration and music of the early twentieth century.

He has taught as part of the Music Theory Faculty of the Peabody Conservatory since 1998.  Previously, he taught the undergraduate core sequence, orchestration, and Introduction to Rock Music on the Homewood Campus.  He won the 2006 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Peabody Chapter of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association.  He continues to teach graduate seminars on twentieth-century music and the Beethoven string quartets.

He is the author/editor of Orchestration: An Anthology of Writings (Routledge, 2006) and co-author, with Phyllis Bryn-Julson of the book Inside Pierrot lunaire (Scarecrow Press, 2009).   More recently, he has written shorter pieces on Amy Winehouse, the assessment of student learning in the music school, and musical accomplishment, and a bibliography on Instrumentation and Orchestration for Oxford.

His works have been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, Luna Ensemble, and the Peabody Opera Theater. He has been recognized by Meet the Composer, the Maryland State Arts Council, and ASCAP. His opera Piecing it Apart was premiered by the Figaro Project.

A native of Baltimore, Paul Mathews earned his D.M.A. in composition at The Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Jean Eichelberger Ivey, Ronald Caltabiano, and Robert Sirota. He was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda. He earned prior degrees from Towson University (Music Composition and English Literature) and Pennsylvania State University (Composition and Theory). As a teenager, he studied percussion at the Peabody Preparatory.

He previously taught at the Peabody Preparatory, UMBC, and Baltimore City Community College. Mathews became a continuing faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory in 1999 and served as Chair, 2001-2005. He was the first Director of the Peabody Institute at Homewood, Peabody’s administration of the minor in music on the main campus of the Johns Hopkins University, 2005-2008, and the Conservatory Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, 2008-2022.