Rebecca Rowe – composer

is passionate about bringing contemporary music to new audiences in a way that is exciting, challenging, yet meaningful and accessible. She is interested in presenting music in new ways, and in new spaces, particularly interdisciplinary projects involving musicians, artists, film-makers and writers.

Rebecca has composed soundtracks for animated films and theatre productions, and she has worked collaboratively with directors and poets in setting their images and words to music.

Born in South Yorkshire in 1970, Rebecca's musical training began as a cellist and pianist. As the daughter of renowned piano teacher, examiner and Early Years Music education pioneer Joan Rowe, the home was filled with music and instruments, children coming and going for piano lessons, older students coming to rehearse advanced repertoire with Joan as accompanist, and chamber music and recorder consorts. Rebecca was hugely influenced in her early years, with a life full of music-making and being taken to the Sheffield Philharmonic Concerts. She was taught piano and aural training by her mother, and studied cello with David Higginbottom, Bernard Gregor-Smith and later Susan Lowe.

Other early inspiration and interest in harmony and composition came from her studies with Sybil Pentith. Formative orchestral experiences were important, during her time in Rotherham Youth Orchestra; then enjoying somewhat of a golden-age during the 1980s.

Rebecca studied at Hull University, gaining a BMus(Hons) specialising in composition and orchestration, where she studied with Alan Laing who proved to be another tremendous inspiration. It was at Hull that her first commissions and collaborative work in theatre and film began.

In 1992, Rebecca relocated to Edinburgh, studying at the University with Nigel Osborne, for a MMus in Composition. Having begun her studies on the viola da gamba in Hull with Alison Crum and Graham Sadler, Rebecca became a founder member of The Squair Mile Consort of Viols, and is a former Artistic Director and conductor of Edinburgh University Contemporary Music Ensemble.

Rebecca has received great acclaim for her orchestral, chamber and choral work, enjoying many commissions from artists as diverse as The Dunedin Consort, Cappella Nova, The Hilliard Ensemble, recorder virtuoso John Turner, contemporary music ensemble ONE VOICE, Northern College Aberdeen, singer Steven Griffin, pianists Richard Deering and Phillip Thomas, and The Allegri String Quartet and the innovative ensemble Chroma, to name but a few. Rebecca received an award from The English Poetry and Song Society, for the 1994 work No Sad Songs, a setting of a Christina Rossetti poem.

Hugely interested in the immense power of music and image combined, Rebecca has composed soundtracks for animated films and theatre productions, and she has worked collaboratively with directors and poets in setting their images and words to music.

In 2005 Rebecca was invited to be a panel-member at StAnza, (St. Andrews Poetry Festival) where she took part in an illuminating debate on Words and Music.

Between 2010 and 2012, she worked on a series of multidisciplinary projects with film-director Alastair Cook.

The 2015 collaborative project ’Turning the Elements’, resulted in the commission ‘Three Pieces for Soprano and Clarinet’, for Frances Cooper and Joanna Nicholson. For this endeavour, new poetry was also commissioned from prominent Scottish poets Jane McKie and Stewart Sanderson, which formed the texts of the songs. This project, also involving visual projections, was unveiled at Aberdeen’s prestigious SOUND Festival as well as in Jedburgh for Scottish Book Week and at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St. Andrews in March 2016. In 2017, Rebecca’s new work Kaleidoscope for chamber sextet was premièred by the Chroma Ensemble in London. 2018-9 saw performances of Rebecca’s work in the innovative ‘The Night With…’ sessions taking place around Scotland. Her work, ‘About The Cauldron Sing’, a setting of the witches’ scenes from Macbeth was commissioned and premièred by Fliskmahoy! in their thrilling performance in March 2019.

Rebecca’s piece ‘Journeying’ for viola da gamba player Ibrahim Aziz appeared on his acclaimed solo CD Risonanze in 2019 and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

During the challenges of 2020, Rebecca wrote five songs for children’s chorus which she taught remotely, unable to work with live choirs together. The children each recorded their parts individually then the songs were then mixed and comprised the musical for school children, ‘Moving Online’, a terrific, uplifting team effort amidst such a difficult and uncertain time.

In 2021, she was delighted to be invited to contribute a cello solo on the single 'Two Hearts' by singer-songwriter Ewan Patrick.

During this period, the large commission for Glasgow School of Art Choir as part of the ground-breaking Composeher project, was completed. A setting of six poems by Kathleen Raine, ‘Within The Living Eye’ for large unaccompanied chorus, was premièred and recorded in 2023, with a commercial CD release planned by the choir for May 2024.

Rebecca’s work has been broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 3 and The BBC World Service. Short films which she scored have been broadcast on STV and bought by BBC TV.

Known also as a skilled conductor and interpreter of contemporary music, she has conducted chamber orchestras, contemporary music ensembles and large choirs, ranging from children’s school choirs through to University ensembles.

Rebecca has been passionately involved in Music Education, working both in Adult Education as a music tutor for ten years, and as a teacher specialising in Primary Music Education since 1996. She has a wealth of experience as a conductor of young choirs and is currently undertaking research on musical creativity and critical-thinking in young children.