About Marianna Filippi

Marianna Filippi was born in Vermont in the United States, and has grown up with highly artistic and creative parents. She spent her childhood on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, and the following years in Maine and Vermont. From the time she was born, she was always in the company of animals and nature, and began learning piano from the time she was two years old. From an early age, a fondness of music was instilled upon her, particularly Irish folk, Loreena Mckennitt, and film composers such as Randy Edelman (“Dragonheart”) and Joe Hisaishi (“Spirited Away”). She wrote a multitude of solo piano pieces from the time she was seven years old, improvising themes and creating complex melodies many years before she learned standardized notation.

Her desire to become a professional composer stemmed from these initial roots, and Music composition became clear as her career path when she attended The Walden School of Music, a five-week summer camp for composers in New Hampshire when she was fifteen. There, she composed her first notated piece for small ensemble, The Whale’s Dream, which led to a lifelong pursuit of learning formal composition. 

In 2022, she earned her Master of Music from the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying with Niels Rosing-Schow, Jeppe Just Christensen, and Rune Glerup.

In 2023, she was commissioned by the Royal Danish Theater to compose a chamber work for eleven Royal Danish Orchestra musicians for its 575th Jubilee, premiering at Den Gamle Scene. That same year, she transcribed music for Østre Gasværk Teater’s Another Brick in the Wall: Part 5.

Her musical voice, influenced by Ravel, Andre Jolivet, Takahashi Yoshimatsu, Janáček, Saariaho, and Joe Hisaishi, emphasizes themes of nature, animals, and environmental conservation. Her works often follow narrative structures inspired by visual art or natural concepts, such as her recently completed six movement work for sixteen voices and cello octet, “A Vast and Precious Blue”, which explores the dangers the global ice caps and glaciers face.

Filippi composes intuitively, developing stories through instrumentation and concept, beginning with piano improvisation to shape melodic and harmonic ideas that evolve organically.