Matthew Shoemate is an American software engineer, horn player, composer, transcriber, and music editor.
After returning to the horn following an extended absence, he developed an interest in historical horn and wind repertoire that remains available primarily through manuscripts, early printed editions, or sets of individual instrumental parts.
His editorial work focuses on preparing modern, practical performing editions of neglected works while preserving the musical content and characteristics of the surviving sources. Particular attention is given to repertoire for horn and wind instruments, especially works for which no modern full score or readily usable set of performance materials is available.
His editions are prepared from public-domain source material and are intended to make neglected repertoire more accessible for study, rehearsal, and performance.
Editions are prepared conservatively from surviving historical sources. Original pitches, rhythms, dynamics, articulations, ornaments, phrasing, and performance directions are retained wherever practicable. Apparent inconsistencies in the sources are generally preserved unless the intended reading is unambiguous.
Editorial intervention is generally limited to modern engraving, practical notation, score reconstruction where necessary, navigational aids, and correction of unambiguous typographical or notational irregularities. The goal is to produce readable and performable modern materials while remaining as close as reasonably possible to the surviving sources.
Where a work survives only as individual instrumental parts, a full score may be reconstructed by aligning the musical material, rest counts, repeated passages, performance indications, and corresponding structural points among the parts.
