Finola Merivale

Finola will compose music for SELKIE in 2025
www.finolamerivale.com

It all started when…

Finola Merivale is an Irish composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. She completed her DMA in Composition from Columbia University in 2023, where she studied with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Zosha Di Castri and Marcos Balter. Themes that run across her music include socio-political issues, the climate crisis, nature and a sense of place – both real and imagined.

Her compositions have been performed internationally – in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia – and featured at festivals such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, the Contemporary Music Festival of Buenos Aires, and Vox Feminae. Her music has been performed by musicians of the Chicago and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble, Desdemona Ensemble, Crash Ensemble, ~Nois Quartet, PRISM Saxophone Quartet and Bearthoven, amongst others. Current and upcoming projects include a work for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (which will be premiered in January 2025) and an evening-length, multimedia piece for W4RP (for the 2025–26 season).

Recent accolades include a 2024 Fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, a 2023 Music Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Charles S. Miller Prize for Distinction in Composition at Columbia University. Her debut portrait album, Tús, was recorded by Desdemona and released on New Focus Recordings in 2022.