Known across Canada and the US for her vocal music, Cecilia Livingston is deeply involved in Toronto's choral and opera communities. Her music has been heard at the Eastman's Women In Music Festival, the Vancouver International Song Institute, the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop and more. An associate composer for the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, she lives in Toronto.
Selected work
Kiss Goodnight - TTBB div. and countertenor soloist. Using many add4 and add2 chords, and close harmonies in the low register, Livingston creates a drifting and whirling bed of accompaniment for the soloists as they narrate the intentionally ambiguous texts in terms of it's subjects, also written by the composer. While the vocal writing is inspired by the composers love of doo-wop and a capella groups, the piece in a tone more somber than typically associated with those styles.
Winner of the Canadian Music Centre's 2018 Toronto Emerging Composer Award, and a winner in the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, her music has been heard at Nuit Blanche, the 21C Music Festival, World Choir Games, on tour with The Bicycle Opera Project, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Kingston Symphony, and with Toronto’s Thin Edge New Music Collective. She worked with Steve Reich at Bang On a Can’s Summer Music Festival and at Soundstreams' Emerging Composer Workshop, and her next project is a full-length opera with TorQ Percussion Quartet and Toronto's Opera 5.