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(composers website: http://www.ceciliamcdowall.co.uk/)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cecilia McDowall is a British composer.
She has been described by the International Record Review as having 'a communicative gift that is very rare in modern music' and Gramophone has said of her that 'she has an instinctive understanding of the medium allied to the ability to speak directly to the listener wholly without artifice'. Often inspired by extra-musical influences, her writing combines a rhythmic vitality with expressive lyricism 'which is, at times, intensely moving'. She read music at the University of Edinburgh continuing her studies at Trinity College of Music, London, later completing an MMus in composition. She studied with Joseph Horovitz, Robert Saxton and Adam Gorb. She has won many awards and has been short-listed seven times for the British Composer Awards. In 2014 she won the British Composer Award for choral music.
Her music has been commissioned and performed by leading choirs, including the BBC Singers, ensembles and at major festivals both in Britain and abroad and has been broadcast on BBC Radio and worldwide.
A commission from the Portsmouth Festival Choir, the Shipping Forecast, gained national media attention, in June 2011. The work reflects the mystery and force of the sea, drawing together the poetry of Seán Street, the psalm 'They that go down to the sea in ships', and the words of the shipping forecast itself.
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