Matt Barris found his passion for singing through choirs, barbershop groups and singing in productions in his first year at Tawa College. He has competed in a number of barbershop quartets since 2015 at both regional and national level in high school and open competitions. In 2016 he joined Wellington based Barbershop Chrous, Vocal FX. In 2018 he travelled to Orlando, FL with Vocal FX, to compete in the Barbershop Harmony Society International Chorus Competiton where they placed in the top 10.

In 2020, Matt was appointed as assistant music director of Vocal FX. Also in 2018, Matt was appointed as music director of Wellington College Barbershop Chorus, Basin Boys, where he took the chorus to their first national competition, placing third. In 2019, Matt joined Inspirare Choir and has sung in a number of concerts with them. In 2020, Matt was the co-director of FilCoro: Filipino Community Choir, alongside Elian Pagalilawan.

Matt has recently completed his Masters of Teaching and Learning at Victoria University of Wellington. He is looking forward to starting his teaching career as Head of Music at Kuranui College.