He holds a PhD in composition and electroacoustics from Columbia University in New York. As a writer, Matthews has coordinated numbers from the "Magazine of the West" and "Twelve Notes" and has published in "The Balsa of the Medusa", in addition to eleven volumes of the History of Music of Deutsche Grammophon.

He lives in Madrid, where he coordinates the improvised music concert series Listen! in the CROSS space: contemporary art and thought.