Cecilia McDowall Born in London in 1951, McDowall has developed a distinctive musical language that speaks directly to listeners and performers alike and is sufficiently versatile and adaptable to embrace orchestral, chamber and instrumental pieces and works for the stage. She has been commissioned and performed by such leading organisations as the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge (There is no rose, for the 2021 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast worldwide) and ensembles, orchestras and festivals worldwide.

Cecilia McDowall is a composer whose music ‘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). The many prizes she has won include the Choral category of the 2014 British Composer Award, for her haunting piece Nightflight, written to mark the centenary of American aviator Harriet Quimby’s pioneering flight across the English Channel. In 2020 McDowall was presented with the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for a ‘consistently excellent body of work’. This was a ‘Gift’ from The Ivors Academy. In 2025 McDowall was awarded by the Royal College of Organists its highest honour, the RCO Medal, in recognition of her ‘distinguished achievement in choral composition’.

In 2023, Signum released a CD of McDowall’s Da Vinci Requiem and orchestral song cycle, Seventy Degrees Below Zero, performed by Roderick Williams, Kate Silver, Ben Hulett, Wimbledon Choral with the City of London Sinfonia, conductor Neil Ferris.