ABOUT

Mary is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed by ensembles including The Riot Ensemble, CHROMA, BCMG and the Nash Ensemble, and in venues ranging from Southwark Cathedral to the Wigmore Hall. 

She is particularly passionate about choral and vocal music, recently receiving commissions from The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge, The Ripieno Choir and The Choir of All Saints, Fulham. She takes a keen interest in collaboration with living authors, filmmakers and performers to create work which is innovative and relevant to contemporary society, founding her own New Music Festival at the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Nico Muhly. Recent work includes a collaboration with a filmmaker depicting the gradual deteriorative process of dementia, a collaboration with a soprano-librettist on experiences of women in contemporary society, and a collaboration with an author on a choral song cycle depicting the process of grief.

As a conductor, Mary has been Musical Director of the premiere of her own opera with Cambridge University Opera Society, a new musical premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022, and conductor of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in the Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. She has conducted a range of genres including opera, choral music and orchestral music and in venues ranging from St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden to Bruges Cathedral, Belgium. She is now the Associate Conductor of The Ripieno Choir.

Mary read Music at Jesus College, Cambridge where she won the Minerva Festival Composition Competition, Homerton College Composing Competition and the David Crighton Award. She then studied MMus Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, where she graduated with Distinction and was awarded the Bertie Douglas Haywood Award. She now enjoys freelance composition and conducting work alongside receiving a full scholarship to compose a new opera with Guildhall School of Music and Drama in association with the Royal Opera House.