Commissioning and public performance of new Scottish Chamber Music
Sir John Blackwood McEwen (1868 - 1948) © National Portrait Gallery, London
The Edinburgh Quartet perform Alasdair Nicolson's Slanting Rain (2015)
Autograph score of McEwen's Quartet for strings in C minor, May 1928
The Ixion ensemble (2014), L to R: Duncan Strachan, Simon Smith and Yann Ghiro
The 2013 ensemble with composer Hafliði Hallgrímsson and conductor Bill Sweeney.
Renowned composer, teacher and University of Glasgow graduate Sir John Blackwood McEwen bequeathed the residue of his estate to the University to help promote the performance of Scottish chamber music.
Since the bequest, a rich catalogue of new Scottish music by the likes of Sally Beamish, James MacMillan, Thea Musgrave, Eddie McGuire, Helen Grime, John Maxwell Geddes, Aileen Sweeney, John Lunn and John Purser has been commissioned and premiered at the University.
Canadian born, Glasgow-based composer and researcher Emily Doolittle is the recipient of the McEwen Commission for 2025 and her piece Cairn, based on 5 new poems by Dundee-based poet Dawn Wood will be premiered in the University Memorial Chapel by the University Chapel Choir on Tuesday 27th May.
The work is inspired by geology and the natural world and by the work of Thomas Weekes, Karel Odstrčil, Kerry Andrew and John Blackwood McEwen himself.
An excerpt from the 2014 commission, Ixion by Stuart MacRae
Watch a scored excerpt of the 2014 commission — Stuart MacRae's Ixion
Listen to… the 2023 McEwen Commission - Colin Broom's The Big Freeze