Finola Merivale is a composer based between Ireland and New York. She completed her D.M.A. in composition at Columbia University in 2023, where she studied with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Zosha Di Castri.
Her music has been performed internationally and featured at festivals such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and the Contemporary Music Festival of Buenos Aires. Recent accolades include a 2024 fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, an NYSCA grant, and a music bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. She will be a Fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris from 2025–26.
In 2022, Merivale’s debut portrait album, Tús – a collaboration with Desdemona – was released on New Focus Recordings. In 2021, Merivale and her creative team were the winners of the 2021 Fedora Digital Prize for As an nGnách/Out of the Ordinary, a community opera in virtual reality which was commissioned by Irish National Opera.
While at MacDowell, Merivale worked on a new piece for saxophone and electronics, Closing Doors, for her upcoming album with improviser Catherine Sikora. She also took field recordings on MacDowell's property, including underwater recordings of ponds and streams for her electronic work.
Portrait by Marco Giugliarelli for the Civitella Foundation, 2024
