Page 44 - MacDonald Missa Brevis

Sarah MacDonald
Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian-born conductor, organist, pianist, and composer, living in the UK, and she holds the positions of Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of Ely Cathedral’s Girl Choristers. She has been at Selwyn since 1999, and was the first woman to hold such a post in an Oxbridge Chapel.
Photo: © Nick Rutter
Sarah came to the UK from Canada in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto with Leon Fleisher, Marek Jablonski, and John Tuttle. At Cambridge she read for a degree in Music, and studied the organ with David Sanger. Sarah has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the UK, North America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and much of mainland Europe. She has made over 35 recordings, variously in the guises of pianist, organist, conductor, and producer, and currently works most frequently with Regent Records. Her first solo disc, a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the Steinway-D in Ely Cathedral was released in 2023. Sarah is a Fellow and examiner for the Royal College of Organists, and an examiner and teacher for the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Music. She is well known internationally as a conductor and teacher, and her liturgical music (over 50 published titles) is performed regularly around the world. She is series editor of the The Sarah MacDonald Choral Series with Selah Publishing in Pittsburgh. Sarah also writes a popular monthly column for the American Guild of Organists’ magazine The American Organist, called UK Report. A compiled volume of 12 years worth of her essays was published in November 2022.
Sarah is a Patron of the Society of Women Organists, an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society, and President of the School Organists’ Association. In 2022 she was appointed University Organist at Cambridge, and is the first woman to hold that prestigious ceremonial role, which dates back to 1670. In her spare time Sarah is a keen amateur photographer.
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