Nirmali Fenn

Nirmali Fenn is a Sri Lankan-born Australian composer. She received her initial music education in Australia from the universities of New South Wales and Melbourne, graduating with high distinction. With the support of a prestigious Clarendon Fund Scholarship, she later read music at Oxford University, U.K. She has worked on the faculties of the University of Hong Kong, New York University, University of New South Wales, Yale-NUS College, Singapore. She currently lives in New York working at University of Stony Brook.

The kinaesthetic qualities of Nirmali's music has attracted the attention of distinguished choreographers such as Pun Siu Fai, Daniel Leung and Jiří Bartovanec. Her collaboration with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company opened the 9th Guangdong Dance Festival in Guangzhou, China. Her project 'Resistance' with Jiří Bartovanec from the Sascha Waltz Co. and ensemble united Berlin will be premiering June 06, 2021.

Nirmali has served as composer-in-residence at a number of major European festivals, most notably the Lakes District Summer Music Festival in the U.K. and the Saxophone Habanera Festival in Poitiers, France. Of the first performance of her song cycle Over Exposed at Abbaye Royaumont in Paris, Le Monde praised it as “standing out in the genre of ‘songs’ of today” and La Croix described it as “deeply moving”. Her compositions have been performed by the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Cairn, Ensemble Linea, the Kuss Quartet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tin Alley String Quartet, Sounds Underground, the Endymion Ensemble, the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Concorde, the S.E.M Ensemble and the Eastman Broadband Ensemble.

Through her music, Nirmali often challenges performers to ‘see’ with their ears and construct spatial ‘views’ of their surroundings. She believes that sound is one tool to give audiences the chance to experience the volume of the space in which they exist.

Nirmali Fenn’s tracks

• Pokój w Pokoju - 'Peace in a Room' by Nirmali Fenn
• Through A Glass Darkly by Nirmali Fenn
• Blown Echoes for Solo oboe, electronics and pipes by Nirmali Fenn
• The Clash Of Icicles Against the Stars by Nirmali Fenn
• A Highwire Act by Nirmali Fenn
• Pókoj w Pokoju for STBB by Nirmali Fenn
• Metamorphosis for flute, clarinet, accordion, 2 violins by Nirmali Fenn
• Scratches of the Wind for alto flute by Nirmali Fenn
• Through A Glass Darkly for trumpet, accordion, clarinet by Nirmali Fenn
• The Edge of Self for solo accordion by Nirmali Fenn