Marie Bennett is a Chicago-based flutist and climate artist whose work bridges virtuosic performance, environmental storytelling, and ocean science. Known for her expressive sound and imaginative programming, she performs across the United States and internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player, with a growing body of work focused on ecological witness and endangered ecosystems.

An active commissioner of new music, Bennett has initiated and premiered works that engage directly with climate change, extinction, and environmental memory. She is the founder and artistic director of Extinction Lullabies, a performance and commissioning initiative honoring vanishing species, threatened habitats, and endangered languages through music, poetry, and soundscape.

Bennett’s projects frequently integrate archival and field recordings, spoken text, and multimedia, and she has commissioned and premiered works by composers including Stephanie Ann Boyd, Stephen Lias, Daniel Dorff, Lee Kesselman, and Joshua Rodriguez. A specialist in low flutes, she performs regularly on alto and contrabass flute.

An active collaborator with scientists, explorers, and conservation organizations, Bennett has participated in international climate and ocean expeditions, incorporating firsthand field experience into her artistic practice. Her work has intersected with figures such as oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, whose narration appears in Echoes from the Deep—a work for contrabass flute and whale song commissioned by Bennett and premiered at an ocean conservation gala. In addition to her performance career, Bennett recently retired after three decades of university teaching to focus full-time on large-scale climate-music projects, commissions, and interdisciplinary collaboration.