Emily Lenore Doolittle (born 16 October 1972) is a Canadian composer,[1]zoomusicologist, and Athenaeum Research Fellow and Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland[2] based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Her music, frequently inspired by folklore and the natural world has been commissioned and performed around the world. She is a member of the Scottish Music Centre[3] and the Canadian Music Centre.[4]
Emily has an interest in zoomusicology (the study of animal and human song) and the natural world. She has explored this in a number of works, her doctoral dissertation at Princeton and as a part of interdisciplinary birdsong research conducted alongside biologists and ornithologists. Together with cognitive biologist W. Tecumseh Fitch, Bruno Gingras and Dominik Endres, she discovered that hermit thrush song follows the overtone series.[6]
Of the development of her passion for bird and animal song, she has said: "I was studying at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague when a bird woke me up one morning. It sounded like human music and aroused my interest in animal song."[7] Other predominant themes in her music include story-telling, music with and/or for children and folklore. Her chamber opera Jan Tait and the Bear was awarded a 2016 Opera America Discovery Grant[8] and was selected for performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the 2018 Made in Scotland Showcase.[9]
Four pieces about water (flute/piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, piano, violin, cello and double bass)
migrations
night black bird song (two piccolos, three percussion)
Palouse Songbook (flute and piano)
REEDS (oboe, B♭ clarinet, bassoon and dancer)
Sorex (a celebration of untamed shrews) (piano duet)
Suppose I was a marigold (cello and piano)
While the parrot repeats human words (narrator, clarinet, viola and percussion)
The Wise Daughter (narrator, violin and piano)
Woodwings (wind quintet)
Three Summer Pieces (flute duo)
Choraledit
Dàn nan Ròn (children's choir with flute and cello obligato)
Seal songs (narrator, children's choir and chamber ensemble)
Songs of Seals
Orchestraledit
Reedbird (for winds and brass)
A Short, Slow Life (for soprano and orchestra)
...and some fireworks"
green/blue
Green notes
Sapling
Operaedit
Jan Tait and the Bear (chamber opera)
Soloedit
Aubade (solo flute)
Field Music (solo clarinet)
Gliese 581 c (solo piano)
Minute etudes (solo piano)
Minute etudes (book two) (solo piano)
Music for Magpies (viola da gamba)
Vocaledit
Airs of men long dead (mezzo soprano and piano)
All spring (soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, bass and percussion)
Body of Wood (soprano, Bohlen-Pierce clarinet, cello and percussion)
Child's play (soprano and piano)
Hammarskjold songs (soprano and piano)
Ruby-Throated Moment (solo high soprano)
A short, slow life (soprano and orchestra - version with soprano and 10 instruments also available)
Social sounds from whales at night (soprano and tape)
Virelais (soprano and solo bowed instrument)
Recordingsedit
all spring - CD of chamber music performed by the Seattle Chamber Players and friends - comcon0025 7/15
Referencesedit
^"Emily Doolittle: Showcase | Canadian Music Centre | Centre de Musique Canadienne". www.musiccentre.ca. Archived from the original on 2018-11-05. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
^"Emily Doolittle - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland research and professional practice gateway". pure.rcs.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
^Von Glahn, Denise (2013). Music and the Skillful Listener. Indiana University Press. pp. 299–302.
^"Overtone-based pitch selection in hermit thrush song: Unexpected convergence with scale construction in human music (PNAS)". pnas.org. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
^Greenaway, Heather (2017-06-21). "'Real life Doctor Dolittle' sings to seals and turns their howls into music". dailyrecord. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
^"Opera America Announces Recipients of Opera Grants for Female Composers". Retrieved 2018-09-26.
^"Jan Tait and the Bear | Made in Scotland". Retrieved 2018-09-29.
^"Emily Doolittle wins Theodore Front Prize for "A short slow life"". 2012-07-03.