Born on 20 April 1963 in Schlüchtern (Hesse, Germany), Isabel Mundry grew up in West Berlin. From 1983 to 1991, she studied composition with Franck Michael Beyer and Gösta Neuwirth at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste. Throughout her education, she worked regularly at the Experimentalstudio in Freiburg and the electronic music studio at the Technical University of Berlin, where she also studied musicology, art history, and philosophy. From 1991 to 1994, she undertook further study with Hans Zender at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. From 1992 to 1994, she was a resident at the Cité des Arts in Paris, during which she participated in the IRCAM Cursus (IRCAM’s composition and computer music course). From 1994 to 1996, she lived and worked in Vienna.

Starting in 1986, Isabel Mundry taught music theory and analysis at the Spandau School of Church Music, and from 1991, at the Hochschule der Künste, both in Berlin. She went on to teach composition and music theory at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts from 1996 to 2005. She taught composition at the Akiyoshidai Festival in Japan (1997) and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses (1998, 2000, 2002). She has been a professor at the Zurich Hochschule der Künste since 2004, and at the Munich Hochschule für Musik und Theater since 2011.

In 2019, her works Textile Nacht (2014) and Eure Augen (2002) were performed at Archipel Festival in Geneva, and Sounds, Archeologies (2018) at the Festival d’Automne in Paris. The following year, she completed a new work for percussion and ensemble for the Festival Présences.

Mundry’s catalogue comprises mainly chamber music for different instrumental ensembles, sometimes using electronics. Her works have been performed by Michael Bach, Eberhard Blum, Christiane Petresch, Klangforum Wien, and Ensemble Modern, among others.

Prizes

• Boris Blacher Composition Prize from the Berlin Hochschule der Künste and the Hochschule Hanns Eisler (1992)
• Busoni Composition Prize from the Berlin Academy of the Arts
• Kranichsteiner Prize from the Darmstadt Summer Courses
• Composition Prize from the City of Berlin
• Ernst von Siemens Foundation Prize (2001)
• Schneider Schott Prize
• Ingrid zu Solms Foundation Prize
• GEMA Prize (2014)