multitude of voyces

Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian-born organist, conductor and composer, currently  living in the UK, where she is a Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of the Girl Choristers at Ely Cathedral. She has been at Selwyn since 1999, and is the first woman to hold such a post in an Oxbridge chapel. MacDonald studied at Toronto's Glenn Gould School and at Cambridge University; her teachers were Leon Fleisher, Marek Jablonski, John Tuttle, and David Sanger.

MacDonald has performed across the UK, North America, the Middle East, and mainland Europe, and is in demand internationally as a conductor, organist, and teacher. She has made over 35 commercial recordings and has over 60 published works for choir and organ. She holds the Fellowship diploma of the Royal College of Organists, and writes a popular monthly column for the American Guild of Organists' magazine, The American Organist.

Her first solo disc, a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations performed on the Steinway-D piano in Ely Cathedral was released in May 2024.

In 2018 MacDonald received the honorary ARSCM (Associate of the Royal School of Church Music) in recognition of her contribution to choral music.  Sarah took up the office of President of the Royal College of Organists in July 2024. She is an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society, a Patron of the Society of Women Organists, and President of the School Organists’ Association. She was appointed University Organist at Cambridge in 2022, and is the first woman to hold that prestigious ceremonial role, which dates back to 1670

Photo: tbc