Library Chat: Finola Merivale and Catherine Sikora
Composer and Fellow Finola Merivale, whose music has been described as both “a wild ride” and “edgy and discomforting yet exciting and distinctive,” and saxophonist, improviser, and composer Catherine Sikora came together for a Library Chat ahead of Merivale’s portrait concert celebrating the launch of “Abhaile” , the Irish word for “home” , their collaborative album for saxophone and electronics. In conversation, they reflected on the origins of their artistic partnership, the development of each piece on the album, and the collaborative process behind shaping its sonic world. Moving between composition, improvisation, memory, and place, the discussion offered insight into how their shared creative language evolved over years of working together, and how sound became a way of exploring intimacy, displacement, and belonging.
Finola Merivale’s music has been described by the Washington Post as a “wild ride;” by the New York Music Daily as “the showstopper of the night;” and by The Wire as “edgy and discomforting yet exciting and distinctive.” Her music evokes socio-political issues, the climate crisis, nature, and a sense of place – both real and imagined. Recent accolades include fellowships from MacDowell (2025) and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2024), a 2025 Music Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland, and an award from the New York Council on the Arts. In 2021, Merivale and her creative team won the 2021 Fedora Digital Prize for As an nGnách/Out of the Ordinary, a community opera in virtual reality commissioned by Irish National Opera. In 2022, Finola’s debut portrait album, Tús – a collaboration with Desdemona – was released on New Focus Recordings. She is currently a Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris.
Saxophonist, improviser and composer Catherine Sikora was first electrified by the sound of air vibrating in a metal tube when, as a child, she heard the wind playing tones and overtones in a metal gate. She has devoted her life to researching the magic of that sound with her saxophones. Sikora’s recordings have been released with Relative Pitch Records, Tripticks Tapes, Fort Evil Fruit and others. She has toured internationally, both solo and with Eric Mingus, Eris 136199, Brian Chase, Elliott Sharp, and Ursel Schlicht. Sikora was twice awarded residencies at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (in 2016 and 2020), and together with Brian Chase, they received a grant from the Irish Arts Council for a tour of Ireland. Her work is regularly featured on “Freeness” (BBC radio), Free Jazz Blog (Berlin), Avant Music News (Chicago) and A Jazz Noise (Barcelona). In addition to performing in tiny spaces that are the beating heart of improvised music, she has played several major festivals, including the Vision Festival (New York City) the Adelaide Festival of the Arts (Australia), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon, PT), and Documenta 15 (Kassel, DE).
