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Maria Finkelmeier
Maria Finkelmeier

Role(s):

Summer Symposium Faculty

Specialties:

Percussion

Affiliations:

Sponsored in part by Yamaha, Remo, and Vic Firth

Named a “one-woman dynamo” by The Boston Globe, Maria Finkelmeier is a percussionist, composer, educator, and arts entrepreneur based in Boston, Massachusetts. Maria is founder and director of Kadence Arts, a non-profit devoted to incubating artistic projects, curating performances, and engaging local communities through music making. Dedicated to shaping the next generation of performers and arts administrators, Maria is a lecturer at Northeastern University’s Music Industry Leadership program, and from 2012 – 2015 she served as the program manager of the Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department at New England Conservatory. Prior to rooting in New England, Maria spent three years in Northern Sweden at the Piteå Institution for Music and Media as an artist in residence.

A nuanced interpreter and creator of new music, Maria is co-founder of the artist collective, Masary Studios. Responsible for turning Fenway Park’s Green Monster into an instrument and projection canvas for Illuminus at HubWeek in 2015, Masary Studios combines music performance with triggered animation. In 2017, Masary Studios was commissioned to create a new work for the historic Cyclorama at the Boston Center or the Arts, in which Maria composed 60 minutes of new music for 8 percussionists and 4 vocalists. She also tours with Quartet Kalos, a Swedish-American band (clarinet, cello, voice, percussion) focused on arranging folk music and commissioning new works, presents a solo program entitled “Human and/or Machine,” and performs with Ensemble Evolution and Hub New Music. Maria has also been commissioned to create works for TEDx Cambridge, ArtWeek Boston, and the Outside the Box Festival. As an orchestral percussionist, she has toured throughout Europe and Russia with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic under the baton of Kristjan Järvi.

Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Maria received a Bachelor of Music from The Ohio State University and a Master of Music from Eastman School of Music, where she was granted a Performer’s Certificate in recognition of her artistic achievements. Additionally, Maria’s commitment to arts entrepreneurship was nurtured during her studies, where she participated in the Catherine Filene Shouse Arts Leadership Program. Maria has studied under and drawn inspiration from her teachers, Susan K. Powell, Joseph Krygier, John Beck, Michael Burritt and Anders Åstrand. She is a proud endorser of Yamaha, Grover Pro Percussion, Vic Firth, and Remo.