Mathieu Corajod studied composition under Xavier Dayer at the University of the Arts Bern from 2010 to 2015, taking the experimental musical theater program option founded by Georges Aperghis. He later expanded on this theme with, among others, Jennifer Walshe, Simon Steen-Andersen, and François Sarhan. He then worked in the same institution as an assistant in the composition and musical theory master’s program, all the while training in research and musicology at the University of Bern. In 2018, he joined the Cursus program on composition and computer music at IRCAM with Thierry De Mey. In 2019, he was chosen as the winner of the commission of the canton of Bern.

Selected in a European project call for applications for Merge Up!, Corajod is co-founder of the composers collective CUE Creative/Union/Experience with Giulia Lorusso and Giovanni Montiani. He is also a choreographer and director, and founded his own interdisciplinary ensemble, Compagnie Mixt Forma, bringing together musicians, dancers, actors, and writers. In 2022, he was in a music and choreography creation residence at Abbaye de Royaumont with the ensemble. Mixt Forma’s mission is to bring interdisciplinary and contemporary forms of writing to musical theater, in the vein of Corajod’s work. He is currently writing his thesis under Swiss composer Hans Wüthrich, a trained linguist, whose work explores different forms of musical theater. Following from Aperghis’s work in this field, many of Corajod’s pieces focus on reinventing this genre. Examples include Philipp (2011) for vibraphone and poetry slam, Lazzi du nez (Nose Lazzi, 2013) for imaginary violin, Die Geheimnislosen (The Mysterious, 2014) theatrical dialog between three characters, re-transcribed by piano-activated video, and Laquelle se passe ailleurs (Which Is Happening Elsewhere, 2023), poem for four hybrid performers.

Within his pieces, voice and text hold a particular importance. Corajod is the author of the texts for Stream and Lingua Segments, and he twice worked with writer Dominique Quélen, a member of Mixt Forma, for his final Cursus piece, Ça va bien avec comment tu vis (this not-quite-sensical phrase might be interpreted, “Is How You Live Going Well”; 2019), and for his first opera, Rendez-vous près du feu, a commission from the Opéra National de Lorraine for its Nancy Opera Xperience project in 2022.

His works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles and musicians such as Ensemble Divertimento, Ensemble Adapter, Ensemble Interface, Ensemble soyuz21, the Bern Chamber Orchestra, duo eventuell, and Duo Alto.

Corajod is involved in various classical- and contemporary-music awareness projects, as well as several professional networks and associations, such as the Collège Contemporain. He also works as a music journalist and musicologist.