Bio

Multi-talented musician Matt TC Lucas can usually be found behind a drum set or a microphone, often playing and singing at the same time; you may even catch him composing and arranging at the keyboard of both piano and computer.  Music is his passion, his vocation, his center, with the drums being the primary channel through which he shares music with others.  He is adept at many genres:  jazz in all of its styles (blues, swing, bebop, hard bop, Latin, fusion, and more); funk; soul; R&B; hip-hop; ska; reggae; and rock.  He was the drummer for the 2019 DownBeat Magazine Award-winning Colburn Jazz Workshop Monday Night Band.

A proud Southern California native, Matt TC Lucas currently spends most of his time in Baltimore and the Washington, DC, area.

  • He has appeared on bandstands on both East Coast and West Coast, playing at venues large and small, noteworthy and neighborhoody: laying down grooves in Baltimore where he formed a rhythm section with legendary bassist Christian McBride at Friedberg Hall and traded fours with trumpeter extraordinaire Sean Jones at Keystone Korner; performing at the Monterey NextGen Jazz Festival and Los Angeles’s Catalina Jazz Club; even accepting an invitation to play an alternative rock set at the famed Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, playing alongside former Ratt bassist Robbie Crane.   
  • He’s also an in-demand recording artist:  he’s collaborated with Nolan Shaheed and David Raiklen, as well as having been asked to support many other in-studio projects by singers, saxophonists, violinists, bassists, and guitarists. 
  • He finds great inspiration in classical music, from diverse composers ranging from giants like Stravinsky, Debussy, Chopin, Gershwin, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky to living masters such as John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Andrew Norman, and Caroline Shaw.

Matt TC Lucas is an undergraduate at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, majoring in jazz performance under the leadership of Sean Jones. He is the grateful recipient of the Zildjian Scholarship, established at Peabody through the kind generosity of Ms. Donna J. Hobbs.  

Prior to that, he spent three years as a member of the Colburn Jazz Workshop (Lee Secard, Director), part of The Colburn School in Los Angeles.  He was also the number one drummer at Redondo Union High School from the moment he stepped foot onto campus as a freshman until he graduated four years later, helping lead the school to dozens of festival championships and awards and gaining many “outstanding festival soloist” trophies along the way. 

He began his formal music education studying piano at seven years old, and he started playing drums at the age of eleven.

When not involved in music, he is happiest and at his most peaceful with his feet in the sand at a South Bay beach in Los Angeles watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean, or reveling in good food and conversation with family and friends.  He also enjoys watching random YouTube videos, reading, dabbling in Filipino martial arts, and urban exploring.