composers

Cecilia McDowall

• A Draught of Fishes

Educated at Edinburgh and London Universities and Trinity College of Music, Cecilia won several prizes for composition, including the Chappell Prize. Two children later, she returned to composing, with a Masters degree from the London College of Music and Media, (a first and the Wilfred Josephs Prize for composition.) She has studied composition with Joseph Horovitz, Robert Saxton and Adam Gorb.

She has been commissioned and performed by leading ensembles and choirs, including the BBC Singers, and her cantata Christus Natus Est was performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on Christmas Day 2005 and broadcast live on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. Three Antiphons have been recorded by an international trumpet ensemble consisting of players from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and released on the Brass Classics label. The Orchestra of St John's gave the first London performance of Tongues of Fire: Missa Brevis in St John's Smith Square and the W11 Opera performed Deep Waters, a children's opera written in collaboration with the novelist, Christie Dickason, before Xmas, 2000.

Commissions have included; Hodie for the London Mozart Players, Street Café for the Fibonacci Sequence, Laudate performed at St Albans Abbey, Rise heart, thy Lord is risen at Portsmouth Cathedral; Cavatina at Midnight at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival, The Skies in their Magnificence for the English Music Festival and Towards the Morning for Berkhamsted Collegiate School.
Works for flute and piano duo and wind ensemble have been recorded by Ensemble Lumiere on the Deux-Elles label (DXL1033) (Piper's Dream 2002) and include the specially commissioned Arctic Circle (for wind quintet and piano). The Dutton label recorded a further CD (CDLX 7197) of McDowall's choral work in 2007 with the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir and the Joyful Company of Singers.

www.ceciliamcdowall.co.uk