Women Composers - Mary Finsterer

Mary Finsterer

Australia | *1962

Although Mary Finsterer experimented with avant-garde forms in her early works, she now composes in a sonorous and archaic-emotional style. In her recently-composed opera Antarctica, the Australian focuses on a historical expedition to the eternal ice, simultaneously depicting a vulnerable world that has accumulated the evidence of thousands of years of geological history. The Stabat Mater for orchestra, scheduled to be premiered in Sydney and conducted by Simone Young but postponed due to a lockdown, forms the beginning of a cycle which will be followed by additional orchestral pieces. The composer’s latest music theatre work, Artemisia will be a portrayal of the life of the exceptional Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi who had to assert herself as a woman and female artist in a world entirely dominated by men. Interested organisations still have the opportunity to participate in the commissioning of this composition.

Mary Finsterer

by Dean Golja

Antarctica

Chamber opera for 5 voices, 1 actor and ensemble with electronic accompaniment (2020–2021) · 90’ Libretto by Tom Wright (engl.)

Lumen Prime Aurore

A symphony for two orchestras (2021)

Stabat Mater – Symphony

for orchestra (2022)

When soft voices die

for choir and cor anglais, Text from various works by Percy Bysshe Shelley (2014)