Cecilia McDowall is another of the new generation of highly communicative musicians who favours writing which, without being in any way facile, is brightly cogent, freshly witty and expressive in its own right.
She constantly tweaks the ear with her range of spicy rhythms and colours then suddenly produces a highly atmospheric and grippingly expressive interlude which is just as compelling.
Gramophone
2014 British Composer Awards
Cecilia McDowall won the British Composer Award – Choral category – with ‘Night Flight’, for SSATB and cello solo.
2016 British Composer Awards
Cecilia McDowall was finalist in the Choral category with her Three Shakespeare Songs, ‘When time is broke’ performed by the BBC Singers, conductor David Hill.
Honorary Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music 2017
Cecilia McDowall has been honoured as a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music for her outstanding contribution to church music. The RSCM Celebration Day service and ceremony took place in Canterbury Cathedral on 14 October, 2017
On July 3 at 3.30pm Sir Stephen Cleobury directs a special Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3 to mark his retirement after 37 years as music director. The service begins with the premiere of Cecilia McDowall’s psalm setting, ‘O Sing unto the Lord’.
On May 7 Wimbledon Choral Society premiered McDowall’s full scale work, ‘Da Vinci Requiem’ with Roderick Williams, baritone, Kate Royal, soprano, The Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Neil Ferris at the the Royal Festival Hall. The work is now published by Oxford University Press.
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