McKinney Summer Musicals

Buddy Mattei, Orchestral Director

Mr. Buddy Mattai has been a "working musician" in the Dallas area since arriving here in 1969 from Kentucky to attend the University of North Texas, from which he received his bachelors and masters degrees.

While at UNT, Buddy played and later taught in the famed jazz Lab Band program and Symphonic Band.

His extensive performance credits include such notables as Bob Hope, Lou Rawls, Roberta Flack, Rich Little, The Temptations, Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney, Jimmy Dean, Milton Berle, Jim Nabors, Phyllis Diller, and Larnelle Harris, along with the orchestras of Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Bob Crosby, and Ted Weems, Jr. Locally, Buddy is a regular performer with The Phares Corder Orchestra. His widely varied show experience includes The Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, Holiday on Ice, Disney on Ice, the Moscow Circus, the Gridiron Club, the Tyler Rose Festival, and countless rodeos (both as musician and conductor) throughout the United States and Canada.

His musical theatre experience includes covering woodwind books in orchestra pits for The Music Man, Bye-Bye Birdie, Oklahoma, and West Side Story. At Princeton High School, where he taught for 16 years, his bands and ensembles were consistently awarded 1st Division ratings. His writing and arranging credits include colleges, high schools of all sizes, junior highs, and churches.

Buddy left public school teaching in 1999 to assume his current position as Director of Music Ministries, Stonebridge United Methodist Church in McKinney. Buddy and his wife, Marilyn, have one son, Evan, and daughter-in-law, Erin, both graduates of Texas A & M University. They live in McKinney with top dog, Lucy.