Lakeside School

by Jim Collins

Matthew Kearns’s third act was foreshadowed from the start. He sang in the chorus at Lakeside, including a standout performance as a junior of Vivaldi’s “Gloria.” At Lehigh University, he took music theory and voice lessons and performed as a tenor and soloist with the Lehigh Glee Club. Were it not for parents who insisted that he follow more practical educational and career paths, he would have loved to seriously pursue music as a vocation. He went on, instead, to have a successful career in data analytics and data engineering, including stints at Getty Pictures and Expedia. Now retired, Kearns is busy at work scoring what he believes to be the world’s fifth a cappella musical. “Making music is something I knew a long time ago that I would do,” he says, “but I didn’t know when. That I can do this now is my own personal miracle.”

Work, now, for me, is a salvation. — Matthew Kearns

He always had the ear. For years, he has sung with the Kirkland Choral Society. He’s had semiprofessional singing gigs. At Expedia, he was part of a small vocal group that performed contemporary a cappella music — and became passionate about the genre of rhythm and harmonies that takes its signature sounds from the human voice alone. He began fooling around with writing his own vocal arrangements. A chance meeting with award-winning composer John Muehleisen gave him a mentor and the confidence to channel his a cappella compositions into musical theater. He connected with the prolific Los Angeles playwright and lyricist Kai Cofer in 2023. The two of them are halfway through the musical score for “The Process,” a musical retelling of Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial,” scheduled for completion in 2026.