Margaret McAllister

Scotland Visiting Professorship Award, University of Edinburgh, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - Music

I live in Boston and am a professor in the Composition department at Berklee College of Music.  I teach a wide compass of subjects in music theory and composition, music history and technology. As an active classical composer, I have composed concert music for many combinations. I was born in Scotland to Scottish parents and immigrated to the United States as a child. I will be Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh from January to August of 2020 where my host departments are Celtic and Scottish Studies and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Connections between music and language, have influenced multiple facets in my creative thinking about music. My project is to collaborate with Scottish poet Aonghas MacNeacail, using an artistic process that is synergistic and experimental to create a new work for chorus and orchestra featuring texts in Gaelic and English. I am excited to have access to the bibliographic and archival resources uniquely available in Scotland, to learn from and interact with colleagues in Celtic and Scottish Studies, IASH and the Reid School of Music at the University, and to participate in the rich cultural life of the city of Edinburgh.