Comfortable across genres, Schickele has written chamber music, vocal music, songs, and electronic music for ensembles, bands, and the stage. His chamber music has been performed at venues across the USA and internationally. Recent premieres include the monodrama The Oldest Takeout in Ridgewood Queens, and Lamplight for singing cellist and drone. A collaboration with the artist Jane Benson, Song for Sebald--a series of multimedia works--has been shown recently in Berlin, New York City and Cincinnati.
A science lover, some of his most popular works are based on texts by historic or contemporary scientists, NASA, or science journalists. He was principal composer for the recent sold-out run of Science Fair, an opera with experiments in NYC, which Time Out called "Pure, effervescent pleasure."
His chamber opera Marymere, based on the true story of an eccentric Wyoming homesteader and scored for a mixture of classical and folk musicians, has had concert productions in both Wyoming and New York, and scenes have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Of a commission from Dawn Upshaw for her students, The New York Times said "The most striking was Matthew Schickele’s Since 1500, a quartet for unaccompanied sopranos... a harmonically rich, polyphonic web."
Schickele's speculative fiction has appeared in Triangulation, Unrealpolitik, Asymmetry, and elsewhere. As a songwriter his numerous releases include April/November and Cities Filled With Lights. He was cofounder of the acoustic band M Shanghai and, in the '90s, the indie rock group Beekeeper. He's a graduate of Bard College, where he studied composition with Joan Tower. Recordings available via Bandcamp, as well as all the usual suspects.