Choral Connections

"Cecilia McDowall's music appears quite unselfconscious, free and flexible, written without constraints that have beset earlier generations of some British composers ... McDowall is happy to be herself, a composer in command of several attributes: she has something original to say about life and art, speaking directly to an attentive audience without insulting their intelligence or basic human sensitivities."  (Musical Opinion)  

Educated at Edinburgh and London Universities and a prize-winning student at Trinity College of Music, Cecilia McDowall has a distinctive style which speaks directly to listeners, instrumentalists and singers alike. Her choral output has been described as having a "freshness, brightness and fidelity" about it, combining flowing melodic lines and occasionally astringent harmony with rhythmic vitality.

Her music has been commissioned and performed by leading choirs, including the BBC Singers, ensembles and at festivals nationwide. The cantata Christus Natus Est (published by OUP in 2007) was performed at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, on Christmas Day 2005 and broadcast live on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. She was short-listed for the 2005 British Composer Awards in two categories,  Regina Caeli in the Liturgical section and Stabat Mater for the Making Music Award. Her works are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio; her St Martin's Service and introit were broadcast in 2007 on BBC Choral Evensong from Ely Cathedral. Dutton Epoch released a CD of her choral work in the autumn of 2004 (CDLX 7146), a CD of orchestral and chamber music in autumn 2005 (CDLX 7159), and a further choral CD, from the Canterbury Chamber Choir and the Joyful Company of Singers, in 2007 (CDLX 7197). Three Antiphons have been recorded by an international trumpet ensemble consisting of players from the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic and were released on the Brass Classics label last autumn, and a superb recording of her Three Latin Motets has just appeared on the Chandos label in which Charles Bruffy conducts the Phoenix Chorale in a selection of hymns to the Virgin Mary.

A recent commission, Five Seasons, for which she was selected from a large list of composers by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir, was for a choral and instrumental work, receiving its first performance in Sherbourne Abbey in November 2006. This exciting and unique project involved the composer, Cecilia McDowall, and the novelist and poet, Christie Dickason, taking up mini residences at five organic farms (under the auspices of the Soil Association). The brief for the commission was to "celebrate the organic landscape". The work was subsequently featured on Aled Jones' programme, The Choir, and BBC radio 4, Farming Today.

In 2007 Oxford University Press published Christus natus est, and in 2008 Ave maris stella and Magnificat.  Her shorter anthems are regularly included in their anthologies, most recently Now may we singen in The Ivy and the Holly.

McDowall has enjoyed teaching, over the years, at the Yehudi Menuhin School and at Trinity College of Music.

For a complete list of works, sound clips, and other information, please visit Cecilia McDowall's website.