Christie Finn is active as both a performer and scholar involved in the world of classical and experimental vocal performance and public musicology. For over two decades, Finn has maintained a career as a singer and vocalist, first in her native United States and then throughout Europe, performing with important new music ensembles like Asko | Schönberg (NL), ekmeles (USA), ensemble plus (AT), ensemble recherche (DE), ensemble TaG (CH), ensemble variances (FR), Hezarfen Ensemble (TR), ictus (BE) and many others. She is co-artistic director of ExVoCo (Stuttgart, Germany) and the Managing Director of the Hampsong Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to teaching the history of culture through classical concert song. Her performance career has always benefited from her work as a scholar; she has presented papers relating to contemporary vocal music and gender and race studies at international conferences such as that of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, and the Theatre and Performance Research Association (UK), as well as symposia in Switzerland and Germany. She currently teaches (Lehrauftrag) musicology seminars at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (DE) and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Michigan (USA) and Southern Methodist University (Dallas, USA). She is currently writing her dissertation in Historical Musicology (Dr. phil/PhD) at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Natasha Loges while maintaining her performing career.
Longer Biography:
As a singer and vocalist, Christie Finn has performed as a soloist with the Asko | Schönberg Ensemble (Netherlands), ensemble chromoson (IT), ensemble TaG (Winterthur, CH), ensemble recherche (Freiburg, DE), ensemble variances (France), Hezarfen Ensemble (Istanbul, Turkey), ictus (Belgium), Nadar (Belgium), New European Ensemble (The Netherlands), Oerknal! (Netherlands), oh ton-ensemble (Germany), VocaalLAB (Netherlands), and Voces Suaves (Switzerland), as well as several ensembles in New York City, including ekmeles, the S.E.M. Ensemble, Experiments in Opera, and Tactus. She is a co-founder and member of the experimental music duo NOISE-BRIDGE, collaborating with clarinetist Felix Behringer, as well as Co-Artistic Director of ExVoCo. She is also a permanent member of CrossingLines (Spain) and Forum Neue Vokal Musik (Germany).
International festivals and concert series include the Bregenzer Festspiele, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, ensems (Valencia, Spain), Gaudeamus (Utrecht, The Netherlands), klarafestival (Brussels, Belgium), Hamburg International Music Festival, Internationale Paul Hofhaymer Gesellschaft Festtage (Salzburg, Austria), Jazzfest Berlin, Festival Détours de Babel (Grenoble, France), Festival Mixtur (Barcelona, Spain), MUSICON (Durham, U.K.), and Resonant Bodies (New York City, U.S.A.) In the Stuttgart area, where Finn has been deeply active since 2012, festivals include Musik am 13., Südseite Nachts, Klangraum, Sommer in Stuttgart, Konzertreihe für aktuelle Musik, tonArt (Esslingen a. N.), musica nova (Reutlingen), Zeitgenuss (Karlsruhe), and Opernfestspiele Heidenheim. Finn is a two-time winner of an interpretation prize at the International Stockhausen Concerts and Courses (Kürten, Germany) and was awarded a prize in the Karlsruher Wettbewerb für die Interpretation zeitgenössischer Musik 2014.
Her performance schedule for the 2025-2026 season includes Luciano Berio’s Folk Songs with ensemble plus (AT), a performance with ExVoCo as part of the Klangraum Festival (Stuttgart, DE) and a research presentation at the Berio: labyrinths in music Conference (Milan, IT), as well as the premiere of a new work by Zesses Seglias at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria.
In the 2024-2025 season, Finn joined ensemble recherche in Freiburg, Germany, as a soloist for a project exploring AI and contemporary music. Then, as part of the 14th International Art Song Competition of the Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie in Stuttgart, Finn led a lecture/performance with Dr. Louise Toppin and Dr. Michael Harper on the art songs of American composers Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. Finn reunited with Forum Neue Vokal Musik for Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung in northern Germany, a work that she has performed for a decade. Other exciting projects included performances with ensemble plus (AT), Vokalensemble Zürich (CH) and a complete performance of George Crumb’s Madrigals at the 2025 tonArt Festival in Esslingen a.N. (DE). Further scholarly events included the Annual Society for American Music conference in Tacoma, WA (USA), the Feminale HSM Basel in Basel (CH), and a symposium in Frankfurt (DE).
Finn also serves at the Managing Director of the Hampsong Foundation (http://hampsongfoundation.org). Past work with the Hampsong Foundation include the radio series Song: Mirror of the World and the Song of America radio series, both syndicated through WFMT Chicago, among other projects.
As a founding faculty member, Finn teaches annually at the Singing Down the Barriers Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA), an annual summer adult program exploring the vocal repertoire of African American, African and African Diaspora concert composers. Finn also serves as a judge of the international division of the George Shirley Vocal Competition annually.
A native of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, she is a graduate of Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. Finn is also a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program, where she studied with Lucy Shelton. Finn holds a Master of Music in Voice from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas), where she studied with Joan Heller, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music with a minor in Modern Languages & Linguistics from UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). She sits on the General Board and the Music Advisory Board for Kunstraum34 (http://kunstraum34.de) in Stuttgart, Germany and is a founding member of the Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik (http://skam.io). Christie currently resides with her husband and two sons in southwest Germany.
(Last edited and updated: September 2024)