Cecilia McDowall (b.1951)

Cecilia McDowall has been described by the International Record Review as having a 'communicative gift that is very rare in modern music. An award-winning composer, McDowall is often inspired by extra-musical influences, and her choral writing combines rhythmic vitality with expressive lyricism. Her music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by leading choirs, among them the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, and Oxford and Cambridge choirs and is regularly programmed at prestigious festivals in Britain and abroad. In 2017 McDowall was selected for an Honorary Fellow award by the Royal School of Church Music.

"The composer responds directly and imaginatively to all of these quotations, emphasising for example Shakespeare's typical manipulation of the standard technical musical terms of his day such as 'proportion', and making the most of his 'Scotch jig'. Both new sets by Jackson [^{hree Shakespeare Songs}] and McDowall offer much for an audience to enjoy, and the singers too, being welcome additions to the contemporary partsong repertoire in which all voices take an equal part in singing the song." - Geoffrey Webber, Church Music Quarterly, May 2017