Based in Strasbourg, France, Finbar Hosie (1996, Salisbury) is a Franco-British composer. His music expresses a radically phenomenological approach to sound and the concert experience. Oscillating between fragile and visceral expressions of listening intensity, his music is a blur on the boundary between the electronic and the acoustic.
His works have been programmed at festivals and institutions including Gaudeamus, ZKM Karlsruhe, Unerhörte Musik Berlin, Dublin Sound Lab, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, nienteForte, Constellation Chicago, Kunstraum Walcheturm Zurich, Neubad Lucerne, and Impuls, among others. He has received commissions supported by institutions such as the French Ministry of Culture, Sacem, Diaphonique [..], and was a 2023 Diaphonique New Music Fund laureate. In addition to his composition work, Finbar has been a member of the Strasbourg-based collective lovemusic since 2022, serving as sound director and artistic associate. In May 2025, collective lovemusic was presented with the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize at an award ceremony in Munich.
A strong social and political questioning permeates his work, notably through the repurposing of literature, text, image, and video. Never shying away from radicality or pathos, his music aims to evoke a deep sense of absurdity in the concert hall and beyond, presenting numerous view points for the public resisting the binarity of present-day life. The cross-disciplinary core of his work makes striking use of contrasting sonic and visual materials as well as pop-cultural references in a spirit of universality. In addition to an uninhibited reflection of contemporary culture, Finbar holds a longstanding interest in the hybridisation of New-Music, traditional folk sound worlds, and electronica, shaped by the folk heritage that marked the beginning of his musical life.
Central to this practice is his mutualist relationship with musicians: a sustained investigation of the instrument both as material sound-object and as corporeal extension, drawing on historical practices while advocating for experimentation, collaboration, and the development of close, dialogic working relationships throughout the compositional process. The result is a music of physical tension, poised at the limit of mechanical precision and the perceived imperfections of the organic or the human, regularly juxtaposing the intimate, the organic, and the technological.
Finbar holds a Master’s from the Strasbourg Conservatoire and l’Académie Supérieure de Musique de Strasbourg (HEAR) and Strasbourg University, as well as a Bachelor’s from Brunel University London, where he received the Steve Thomas Memorial Prize for composition upon his departure.
