Sheet Music by Women Composers for Mixed Choir: Extensive Selection

Commissioned by Sonoro for the second instalment of their Choral Inspirations project, McDowall has composed Crucifixus Reimagined as a response to Lotti's Crucifixus from Credo in F. Use of suspensio...

Setting words by the composer, One of these days is an affirmatory piece with pop-inspired rhythms and harmonies. The scat syllables and repeating patterns of the lower parts provide a rich cushion fo...

One of McGlade's longer settings, As the hart begins simply, before expanding into a more complex central section with fluctuating time signatures and shifting tonalities. Ideal for advanced mixed-voi...

Setting Revelation 21: 1-5, this short anthem is in McGlade's typically fluid style, with harmonic twists, changing metres, and tempo fluctuations. With some divisi in the upper parts, it will be part...

Taken at a slow processional tempo this work has a predominantly canonic texture. The syncopated passages are at once sombre and sensual, and the balancing homphonic phrases achieve real power. A shor...

This is one of Clarke's many pieces on love, and one of the best. It combines the English modality of earlier times with foretastes of the adventurous chromaticism of her later work. It is a lovely pi...

This is a lilting take on the Elizabethan lute-song full of smooth Stanford-like nineteenth-century harmonies, exquisitely tempered with modal effects.

Immerse yourself in the devotional soundscape of traditional English Christmas music with 'There Is No Rose', published by Oxford University Press. This evocative arrangement breathes new life into th...

This is an appropriately aching setting of Sir Philip Sidney's poem of unending desire and longing. There are gorgeous chromatics and enharmonics and a masterful use of a triplet pattern which becomes...

Weep you no more, sad fountains is a modern take on the Elizabethan lute-song, integrating the characteristic alternations of minor and major, fondness for cross-relations, and vivid word-painting. Th...

Music, when soft voices die combines aspects of nineteenth-century English pastoral style with some of the tonal adventurousness of Vaughan Williams's Shakespeare settings. This is an exceptionally be...

Commissioned by King's College, Cambridge, for the 2021 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Cecilia McDowall's setting of this well-known fifteenth-century macaronic text is expressive and ethereal....

The three movements of A Winter Breviary are entitled: 'We look for you', 'The year's midnight', and 'The unexpected early hour'. The movements are each based on an Indian classical Raag: Raag Hamsadh...

This imaginative setting of the well-loved text O little town of Bethleham, by Phillips Brooks, displays McGlade's characteristic rich and expressive harmonies, with their jazz inflections. Opening wi...

Characteristically sung on Christmas Day, this Catholic chant depicts mystery and wonder at the birth of Jesus, as witnessed by the animals. The second half of the text relates to words spoken by Eliz...

The O nata lux text is taken from a 10th-century anonymous hymn that uses the concept of light to symbolise hope, a particularly pertinent theme for Advent. Throughout this setting the sopranos intert...

A reflection on the plainchant antiphon 'Pulchra es et decora', this hauntingly beautiful piece was commissioned by ORA100 for Suzi Digby and ORA Singers. The original antiphon has been transcribed an...

On the Air (Dear Vaccine) discusses the optimism for a post-COVID world and, particularly, the desire to sing together again. For the text, poet Seán Street drew inspiration from 'Dear Vaccine', which...

A Gaelic Blessing was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh, McDowall's alma mater, for performance by the Edinburgh University Singers conducted by Calum Robertson. This meditative, folk-style...

A powerfully emotive setting that contrasts moments of reflection with declamatory exultation, Psalm 57 uses passages from the eponymous psalm in the King James translation. Written in 1972, it is ded...

Two stanzas of emotive verse by Christina Rossetti are set to music of touching directness in this a cappella offering, whose graceful melodies are often adorned by caressing rhythmic patterns. Offpri...

McDowall brings to life a mystical, brooding nativity text by Nicholas Dakin with dramatic octatonic melodies and parallel movement in fourths and fifths. The propulsive 6/8 metre is decorated with du...

McDowall brings to life a mystical, brooding nativity text by Nicholas Dakin with dramatic octatonic melodies and parallel movement in fourths and fifths. The propulsive 6/8 metre is decorated with du...

Becky McGlade has set this well-known Christmas hymn with textures both rich and restrained. The original English language hymn was based on a 19th-century English translation of Prudentius's 4th-cent...