Those Who Walk Away is the post-classical project of Winnipeg composer Matthew Patton, who has worked under this moniker since the mid-2010s, following numerous scores, performances, and collaborations under his own name. Those Who Walk Away melds string quartet and choral materials with drone, electroacoustics, field recordings and erasure, to create durational elegiac works: as Patton says, “everything I have ever written is a Requiem.” Patton often collaborates with Paul Corley (Sigur Rós, Johann Johannsson) on TWWA production and sound design, recording strings and singers in Reykjavik, followed by music processing work in Winnipeg. The project’s first major work, The Infected Mass, was initially staged in 2016 at the Olympic-size Pan-Am Pool in complete darkness, with a recorded version released on Constellation in 2017.

Patton was Composer and Curator of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival throughout the 2010s mounting new works by Philip Glass, members of Sigur Ros, Jim Jarmusch, Glenn Branca, Jonny Greenwood, Meredith Monk, the Quay Brothers, Gavin Bryars, Lubomyr Melnyk, Tim Hecker, William Basinski, and Jóhann Jóhannssón, among many others. Since Jóhannssón’s untimely death, Patton has also worked with the estate, alongside other friends and collaborators, to mount several Jóhannssón works and recordings, including the Deutsche Grammophon release of A Prayer To The Dynamo (2023), originally commissioned by Patton, who also assisted Johannsson, the work was previously only performed once, with Johann working live electronics, at its world premiere at the WSO New Music Festival in 2012. The second album by Those Who Walk Away, Afterlife Requiem (2026), was created as a memorial to Jóhannssón, and incorporates short abandoned fragments from the late composer’s hard drive archives. An important point for Patton was to involve musicians in the project who had also worked with Jóhannssón; the on-going project will involve additional artists and filmmakers who had a relation to Johann.

Most recently, Patton composed the commissioned work The Limits of Almost for the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and presented works by members of Sigur Ros, Brian and Roger Eno, and Stephen O’Malley, several in conjunction with Basilica Soundscape in New York. Patton has also begun acting: he was cast in Universal Language (2024) by Matthew Rankin and Solitudes (2025) by Ryan McKenna. Moving in front of the camera is an adventurous expansion of Patton’s many prior associations with the film world, among them writing and recording new music for the 2015 Criterion Collection release of Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, a new live music score for Maddin’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital with actor Udo Kier providing live narration, and his ongoing collaboration with Karl Lemieux on a full-length experimental film accompanying Afterlife Requiem by Those Who Walk Away.

As an emerging composer in the 1980s, Patton scored the celebrated early work Speaking In Tongues (1988), a collaboration with choreographer Paul Taylor, praised as “a masterpiece for our time” by the New York Times, and a 1992 Emmy recipient for its PBS Great Performances television production which was also released on Elektra/Nonesuch. The piece has been mounted in new productions at Paris Opera House, La Scala Opera House, The Kennedy Center, and most recently at Lincoln Center in November 2025 which will also tour in 2026.  He composed, wrote, arranged, performed, and produced the music which is among Taylor’s largest works.
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Patton is a graduate in Music Composition from the Manhattan School of Music, his early mentors included James Tenney and John Corigliano. He was then accepted for studies with Frederic Rzewski (“The People United Will Never Be Defeated”) in Liege, Belgium.  Patton also worked as an artist’s assistant with sculptor Richard Serra in New York City.