Linda Dowdell

Jazz Improvisation and Composition

Linda Dowdell is a pianist/composer/arranger whose work has been produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Women’s Project and Productions, The University of Texas, Los Angeles Theatre Company, Tribeca Performing Arts Center and New York’s Summer Play Festival. Her choral compositions have received premieres by such distinguished ensembles as The Gregg Smith Singers and Schola Cantorum of Edinburgh; a new commission was premiered in April 2009 by the Northwest Women’s Chorale.

She has roots in both jazz and classical music, having toured the world as musical director of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project and the Mark Morris Dance Group. She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, where she was awarded the Harrington Award for Creative Achievement in developing new work for the musical stage. (more below)

Linda with Mikhail Baryshnikov, photo by Annie Liebovitz

As a teacher Linda has lectured at Cornish College (Seattle), Bennington College (Vermont), and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (Glasgow). She received a BA in Music from Bennington College (VT), and pursued advanced studies in arranging and orchestration at Mannes School of Music and the Banff Center for the Arts. As a teacher she specializes in improvisation, composition, and Finale (music notation software.)

“An unflagging, unflinching, buoyant sense of rhythm . . . .”
                                    Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe

“... the most exciting thing of all is that Dowdell shows a very rare instinct for word-setting.”
           Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times, Edinburgh

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