Named a “one-woman dynamo” by the Boston Globe, Maria Finkelmeier has built an internationally recognized practice that combines live percussive performance with technology, public art and large-scale production. NPR’s All Things Considered captures her essence: “To call her a virtuoso marimba player, percussionist and artist is just not enough — she is basically an entire art scene herself.”

Finkelmeier’s projects often begin with sound and expand outward. She has transformed Fenway Park into a percussive playground, used the Roebling Bridge as a MIDI controller, and created installations that invite audiences to contribute their own sounds, images, and stories. Her work appears in concert halls and museums, but just as often in parks, public plazas, storefronts, and other spaces not typically built for performance.

In Chameleon, Finkelmeier uses performers’ brainwaves, pulse, and movement to shape sound and visual environments in real time, commissioned by the South Florida Center for Percussive Arts. Her community-based project FREQUENCIES takes a different approach, building audio-visual murals from media contributed by local residents and presenting them at sites including parking garages, museums, and neighborhood businesses. 

Finkelmeier’s work also extends into opera and theater. In 2026, she served as composer, co-director, conductor, and electronic performer for the world premiere of Dies Irae, Desirée, a chamber opera co-commissioned by Third Angle New Music with libretto by Brady Evan Walker. Oregon ArtsWatch called the work “trippy, complex, and timely,” while BroadwayWorld described Finkelmeier as “a multidisciplinary architect of experience” who “builds entire ecosystems out of rhythm.”

Finkelmeier has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian, and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and has performed with ensembles including Silkroad Ensemble, Baltic Sea Philharmonic, The Knights, Landmarks Orchestra, NEXUS, Sō Percussion, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Her career has included performances, residencies, commissions, and collaborations across the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.

Her work has received support and recognition across sectors. She is a recipient of the Brother Thomas Fellowship, a Knight Foundation and Boston Foundation grantee, a 2025 Lumen Prize finalist, and was named a “Creative Revolutionary” by CODAworx. Her projects have also received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston Cultural Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Berklee College of Music. Hatched: Breaking Through the Silence received Boston Design Week’s Social Impact Award, and her score for DESCENDED received seven film awards in 2021.  

Her work has been featured by NPR, CBS, WBUR, GBH, the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Vulture, Sun Sentinel, Oregon ArtsWatch, BroadwayWorld, I Care If You Listen, and National Parks Magazine. She has also been commissioned and presented by organizations including the National Park Service, Boston Center for the Arts, Harvard University, Celebrity Series of Boston, Third Angle New Music, Esplanade Association, and arts organizations and municipalities across the country.

Finkelmeier is the founder and director of MF Dynamics, a creative studio and production company through which she develops performance, public art, and technology-driven projects. Her teams often include musicians, visual artists, designers, engineers, programmers, filmmakers, and community partners, with each project built around the needs of a specific site, idea, or audience.

Alongside her artistic practice, Finkelmeier is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, where she teaches Creative Entrepreneurship and develops interdisciplinary programs for emerging artists. Her work as an educator reflects her own career: one in which composing, performing, directing, producing, teaching, and building organizations are not separate paths, but parts of the same creative practice.

Finkelmeier holds a Master of Music in Percussion Performance from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from The Ohio State University. She is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

Whether composing an opera, directing an immersive environment, stepping behind a marimba, or turning a piece of architecture into an instrument, Finkelmeier returns to the same essential impulse: to make people feel something together.