McEwen Bequest Concert 2024-25
Join the UofG Chapel Choir for the premiere of Cairn by Emily Doolittle, the 2024-25 McEwen Commission recipient
Music in the University/McEwen Bequest Concert 2024-25/Chapel Events
Date: Tuesday 27 May 2025
Time: 19:00 - 21:00
Venue: University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel
Category: Concerts and music
Canadian-born, Glasgow-based composer, researcher, and occasional oboist Emily Doolittle is the recipient of the 2024-25 McEwen Commission.
This concert will premiere Emily's new work Cairn, which is based on 5 new poems by Dundee-based poet Dawn Wood.
Featuring choral and organ music inspired by geology and the natural world including works by Thomas Weekes, John B. McEwen, Karel Odstrčil and Kerry Andrew.
This event is free, but ticketed. Tickets can be found here.
Performers-
University of Glasgow Chapel Choir
Kevin Bowyer, University Organist
About-
Emily Doolittle’s music has been described as “masterful” (Musical Toronto), “eloquent and effective,” and “the piece that grabbed me by the heart” (The WholeNote). She has an ongoing interest in zoomusicology—the relationship between animal songs and music—which she explores in both her composition and through interdisciplinary collaboration with biologists. Recent activities include the premiere of Reedbird, commissioned and performed by the Vancouver Symphony, the premiere of (re)cycling I: metals for found and recycled percussion objects by Architek Percussion at the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg, and writing the music for a 2023 Audible audiobook adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. She is currently working on a set of pieces about turtles for Canadian pianist Rachel Iwaasa (commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts) and an algorithmic composition based on data about Arctic plankton, in collaboration with Ashkan Tabatie, for pianist Anna Showalter. Emily is an Athenaeum Research Fellow and Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
About the McEwen Bequest-
Renowned composer, teacher and Glasgow graduate Sir John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948) bequeathed the residue of his estate to the University to help promote the performance of chamber music by composers of Scottish birth and descent. Other composers resident in Scotland for a substantial period have also benefited from the fund. In fulfilment of the terms of the bequest the University Court commissions annually a piece of chamber music for not more than five players and every three years a work for larger forces.
The McEwen Bequest has provided for the commission of over 50 new pieces by around 40 composers since 1955 - constituting a substantial contribution to the contemporary Scottish chamber music canon.