Maria Grenfell

Maria Grenfell was born in Malaysia in 1969 and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, graduating with a Master of Music degree from the University of Canterbury. She completed further studies in the United States of America, gaining a Master of Arts from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and a doctorate from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she was also a lecturer. Her teachers have included Stephen Hartke, Erica Muhl, James Hopkins and Morten Lauridsen in Los Angeles, and Joseph Schwantner and Samuel Adler in New York.

Maria Grenfell’s work takes much of its influence from poetic, literary and visual sources and from non-Western music and literature. Her works are performed by musicians such as the Australia Ensemble, The Seymour Group, the Vienna Piano Trio, the New Zealand Trio, Palisades Virtuosi (New Jersey USA) and Antipoduo (Netherlands). Orchestras that have commissioned, performed or recorded her music include the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmanian, West Australian Symphony Orchestras, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Auckland Chamber Orchestra, Wellington Sinfonia and the Christchurch Symphony. Maria Grenfell’s music is broadcast regularly on ABC Classic FM in Australia and Concert FM in New Zealand, and is released on Tall Poppies, Kiwi-Pacific and Trust CDs. Her works are available from the Australian Music Centre, SOUNZ, and Reed Music.

In 2017 her double concerto Spirals won the Tasmanian award for ‘Orchestral Work of the Year, and her music was commissioned for the documentary films Quoll Farm, aired in 2021 and Living with Devils in 2023.

Maria co-ordinates and teaches at the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras Australian Composers School, an annual emerging composer program. She has also been a violinist with the Christchurch Symphony and the New Zealand Youth Orchestra, and has performed bowed piano with the University of Southern California Percussion Ensemble. Her awards include the Jimmy McHugh Composition Prize and the Halsey Stevens Prize from the University of Southern California, the Composers’ Association of New Zealand Trust Fund Award and the University of Otago’s prestigious Philip Neill Memorial Prize. Maria lives in Hobart, Australia, with her husband, guitarist David Malone, and son, Alexander, and is a lecturer in music at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music.

Photo Credit: Anthony McKee