About
Marianne is a founder member of the ground-breaking quartet The Hermes Experiment, one of the UK’s leading young contemporary music ensembles and winners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award in 2021. Described by The Arts Desk as “the cool kids of the contemporary music school”, The Hermes Experiment reimagine the concert experience with their idiosyncratic line-up of harp, clarinet, voice and double bass. Their collaborative ethos drives a dynamic programme of over 60 new commissions to date, alongside bold arrangements and electrifying free improvisation. They have released two albums, HERE WE ARE and SONG, to critical acclaim and the group’s third album with Delphian Records, TREE, will be released in October 2025. The Hermes Experiment’s recent and upcoming collaborations include projects with Abel Selaocoe, Kit Downes, Sofia Jernberg and Misha Mullov-Abbado, and performances at venues including Wigmore Hall, The Barbican, Kings Place and De Doolen, Rotterdam.
Marianne has been an artistic board member of the contemporary collective Riot Ensemble since 2019. Winners of the Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize, this internationally renowned ‘supergroup of top soloists playing new music’ (The Guardian) is dedicated to the creation, exploration and presentation of great contemporary works and new music yet to be discovered. As a passionate exponent of the double bass in contemporary settings, Marianne has given the premières of many new solo works for her instrument through her work with this ensemble, including at Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, and Folkestone New Music, as well as solo performances at European festivals including Festspillene i Nord-Norge (Arctic Arts Festival, Norway), and MaerzMusik, at the Berliner Festspiele.
Marianne is a dedicated chamber musician and has performed with groups including the Solem Quartet, Haffner Wind Ensemble, the Gould Piano Trio, Her Ensemble, GBSR duo, 12 Ensemble, Manchester Collective, United Strings of Europe, as well as performances and recordings with musicians Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Abel Selaocoe, Max Baillie, Héloïse Werner, Katie Bray, Louise McMonagle and Clare O’Connell. An experienced orchestral player, Marianne works regularly with a number of UK chamber and symphony orchestras, including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Aurora Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Sinfonia of London.
As an arranger and composer, Marianne recently wrote a piece for Scottish Ensemble and Héloïse Werner to perform in June 2025; a contemporary ‘reimagining’ for string orchestra and voice of a recitative and air from ‘Les Printemps Cantatille’ by the Baroque composer Julie Pinel. Marianne also made a bespoke arrangement for string trio and voice of another song from the same collection of works by Julie Pinel, ‘Sombres Lieux’, for Héloïse Werner’s second album, ‘close-ups’; this was described by Gramophone Magazine as ‘a hauntingly beautiful arrangement’ in which ‘time appears to stand still’. Marianne has arranged music extensively for The Hermes Experiment, including works by Lili Boulanger, Cécile Chaminade, Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Anna Meredith, and Olivia Chaney, and has also written an original song for the group, ‘Islands’, appearing on their third album, TREE. Upcoming composition projects for late 2025 include a spatial work for organ, voice and The Hermes Experiment, a cello and bass duo for a collaboration with cellist Louise McMonagle, as well as set of unaccompanied double bass miniatures.
Marianne studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Cambridge, and is a graduate of the Hallé/RNCM String Leadership Scheme. She is grateful to the Cambridge Bursary Scheme, the Headley Trust and the Greenbank Scholarship for supporting her studies.
