The Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Works Collection recognises her exceptional body of classical works. In presenting the ‘Gift of the Academy’ award to Cecilia McDowall the Academy said that Cecilia is “a highly skilful and captivating composer who communicates...

Classic FM has chosen A Winter’s Night as its Album of the Week with Alexander Armstrong. McDowall’s Christmas cantata, A Winter’s Night is sung by the Winchester College Chapel Choir with Onyx Brass, Ben Cunningham, organ, conductor Howard Ionascu. Recorded on the...

The fifth programme in our A Choral Odyssey series explores the origins of the carol – in its earliest form it was a round dance, more secular than sacred. Mediaeval carols were for everyone from festivities in the town square or village green to celebrations in...

In March 1983, on her 29th birthday, the Russian poet, Irina Ratushinskaya, received a seven year prison sentence for expressing ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’ in her verse. Undaunted, she continued writing poems in prison, aware of the possibility of yet more...

The Glasgow School of Arts has launched an ambitious project involving seven women composers called Composeher. Due to the current situation the premieres have been postponed from May 2021 to May 2022. Cecilia McDowall collaborated with the poet, Seán Street, on this...

To mark International Women’s Day 2020, BBC Radio 3 has commissioned seven very different composers to write a movement each of an a cappella choral work entitled Seven Ages of Woman. Helena Paish; Electra Perivolaris; Samantha Fernando, Emily Hall, Deirdre...