Biography
Finn Mattingly is a composer who “possesses an impressive combination of scholarship, humanity and passion that is inspiring and brings hope to the future of classical music” (Ryan Turner, music director, Newburyport Choral Society). From the North Shore of Boston, Massachusetts, he draws inspiration from across disciplines and genres, from the processes of decay in contemporary photography to the time-old hemiola patterns in American bluegrass and folk idioms to the sinusoidal patterns of tidal motion. He has written for numerous performers and ensembles including the Fidelio Trio, Peter Miyamoto, Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, Bridget Kibbey, the Pro Musica Chamber Players, and the Aizuri and Julius Quartets, as well as fellow students in a variety of programs.
Finn's recent projects include In for a Penny, a sinfonietta work written for the inaugural Cascade Composers Workshop with David Ludwig; a piano trio for the Fidelio Trio; a collaboration with an architect exploring the relationship between sound, physical environment, and the perception of one based on the other; and a sinfonietta showcase/recording of the works of emerging composers, which he is simultaneously organizing, writing for, and curating.
In February of 2023, Finn was featured as the contemporary composer in an RCM Brass Ensemble concert celebrating the music of America, alongside the works of Copland, Gershwin, and Joplin. His piece "Caustic Mirrors" was based on traditional American folk rhythmic patterns reimagined a contemporary harmonic setting, with references to the jazz-inspired landscape of American music.
Additionally, Finn wrote “Sappho Fragments”, for Orchestra, exploring ways in which an audience's sense of temporality can be manipulated through careful repetition and slow development of material. The piece was read by the Brevard Music Center's orchestra, and was selected as a finalist in Brevard's 2022 orchestral composition competition.
In the fall of 2020, Finn wrote "Seaside Contemplation" for Cindy Wu, which employed a variety of harmonic techniques to replicate the juxtaposition between oceanic tranquility and the stress resulting from a pandemic. The piece was premiered in Monterey in November, 2020 as part of Wu's Sunkiss'd Mozart concert series. In February, Finn won Honorable Mention recognition for this piece in Tribeca New Music's Young Composer Competition.
Other recent pieces include "Where the Air Itself was Dangerous," for solo percussion, which was performed by Isaac Harari at the 2022 Head On Photo Festival and "PASS AT OWN RISK," for saxophone quartet, which was performed at the Brevard Music Center.
Finn is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music with Honours at the Royal College of Music in London as a Humphrey Searle Scholar, studying with Prof. Kenneth Hesketh. In the fall of 2023, he will attend Det Kongeligium Danske Musikkonservatorium (the Royal Danish Academy of Music) for one term. Previously, he studied composition with Dr. Rodney Lister and electronic music with Aaron Smith at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, where he won the Senior Award in Composition. He is a alumnus of the composition program at the New York Youth Symphony, where his piece for orchestral winds, brass, and percussion, Scintilla, was performed. Finn has attended numerous summer music festivals, including the inaugural Cascade Composers Workshop, Brevard Music Center, Atlantic Music Festival, the Curtis Institute of Music’s Young Artists Summer Program, and Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s High School Composition Intensive, through which he studied with professors and composers including David Ludwig, Pierre Jalbert, Martin Bresnick, Melinda Wagner, David Dzubay, Robert Aldridge, Eun Young Lee, and Reiko Fueting, among others.. He has attended masterclasses with Martin Bresnick, John Corigliano, Pamela Z, Mari Kimura, Nico Muhly, Jessie Montgomery, Molly Joyce, Chen Yi, Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, John Mackey, and Kati Agócs.
As a passionate educator, Finn is a composition teacher with Through the Staff, an organization providing one-to-one lessons to underpriveliged students, and previously mentored students at the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke's.
Finn can be reached at finnian.mattingly@gmail.com.
