"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

Nunc Dimittis (SATB choir) info

Browse Choral and Instrumental music

ABOUT ME
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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Music by Heart, paperless hymnal (includes my music)

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.

Yaddo residency, March 2010

Farewell MacCrimmon will receive its American premiere in an Orfeo Duo concert in NYC on February 28, 2010

This Ravelled Dust:
Cantata for a Nuclear Age
April 30, 2010 premiere with the Toronto Choral Artists (Mark Vuorinen, director) at the Music Gallery, Toronto

A new commission from the Hudson Opera House for VOCO will be premiered at HOH on August 20, 2010

Stay tuned for the Fall 2010 premieres of Nativity Kontakion, for Greek Byzantine chorus and strings, and Gather Me, both commissioned by Nektarios Antoniou and his Schola Cantorum for Byzantine Music

Stay tuned for the next El Salto, in collaboration with the NY Society for Ethical Culture, in April 2010! More on this soon.

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

MacDowell residency, December 2009

Look for my forthcoming article on pibroch and Scottish music in 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)

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