"Mahogany music..."

- Gabriela Frank, composer

"Take McClellan's music as a reminder and a gentle
admonition that no matter how ancient the music,
the door to reinterpretation is never shut. McClellan
pulls new life from centuries-old choral styles, drawing
on their native spiritual power and recasting them in
the haunting arrangements of the new avant-garde."

- Editor, Download.com

"[Flight of the Earls was]...a hit with the crowd..."

- Geraldine Freedman, Daily Gazette (Schenectady NY)

"...a vivid sense of atmosphere and
narrative force...the audience loved it."

- Michael Miller, Berkshire Review

The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish (SSA) info

Flight of the Earls (Irish bagpipes + orch, expt) info

Dreaming in Darkness (SATB choir) info

Browse/Order more Choral/Instrumental music

I write sacred and secular music for choir, orchestra, Highland bagpipe, mixtures of the above, and other things. I also write about music as a scholar and reviewer, and I organize performances of newly-written music of all kinds, mainly as part of the El Salto project. Some wonderful performing groups have commissioned me to write music for them, and I've won various awards and fellowships for my music. In my free time I teach music history and work as a music librarian.
full bio | a more personal bio | my city

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Become a fan!

Music by Heart, the paperless hymnal
(I wrote the first several songs)

The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition New book from Ashgate (I wrote chapter 13);
also read my original thesis, now also e-published at the Piobaireachd Society.

MacDowell residency, December 2009

Yaddo residency, March 2010

ActorCor, where I am composer in residence, returned January 17, 2010 at All Souls Unitarian Church

This Ravelled Dust: Cantata for a Nuclear Age
Stay tuned for the premiere

Stay tuned for the April 2010 premiere of
Nativity Kontakion, for Greek Byzanting chorus and strings, commissioned by Nektarios Antoniou

I've been asked to write an article on pibroch and Scottish music for CelticLife magazine

Christmas/Advent/Epiphany choral anthems
(plan early for next year!)
O Antiphons + Come Emmanuel (Advent hymn)
They Worship Without Words (3 Kings/Epiphany)

Some very positive developments are brewing for the El Salto project, for a collaboration with the NY Society for Ethical Culture possibly as soon as February 2010! More on this soon.

Dreaming in Darkness is now published in Feniarco's Choraliter
This was the title work in a Luminescence presentation in December 2008

My music is also on Last.fm