The Institute is saddened to hear of the death of Professor Margaret McAllister, a regular visitor to IASH.
Born in Glasgow in 1956, she later moved to Boston and became a naturalized citizen of the USA in 2004. From 2007, she served as Associate Professor and then Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Berklee College of Music. She composed for many different genres including orchestral works, choral music, string quartet, works for electroacoustic media, solo works, film, a variety of chamber ensembles and music for performance by children. She received fellowships and residencies from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Festival at Sandpoint, Scotia Festival of Music, Centres Acanthes, Avignon and others. She also received commissions and performances from many solo artists and performing ensembles. She was co-founder of Crosscurrents, a new music platform dedicated to performing the works of young and emerging composers. Prof. McAllister described her music as "an individualistic form of polystylism that embraces both the experimental and the lyrical as is necessary for specific discourse and expression."
Prof. McAllister visited IASH as the Fulbright-Scotland Visiting Professor for 2020, and again as a Nominated Fellow in summer 2023. Despite the pandemic, her first visit was hugely productive; she collaborated with colleagues in Celtic and Scottish Studies, and with renowned poet Aonghas MacNeacail, culminating in a concert titled Saor bho Shaorsa – Free from Freedom. Prof. McAllister also contributed an essay to our 2020 collection, Humanities of the Future. In 2023, she presented another concert at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Scottish Voices, titled Nuadh-Òrain and Other Songs, which many Fellows and friends attended. We especially remember the beautiful Gaelic elegy for George Floyd, and her song cycle 'Mac-Talla' ('Echo'). Until recently, she was composing new works for some performances in Scotland.
In 2013, Prof. McAllister composed Four songs on texts of Rumi for mezzo-soprano and cello - the subject of her essay in Humanities of the Future. The fourth movement uses Coleman Barks' paraphrases from English translations of Rumi’s Mathnavi (Barks 2006, p.326), and is titled 'The moments you have lived (This candleflame instant)':
As essence turns to ocean,
the particles glisten.
Watch how in this candleflame instant
Blaze all the moments you have lived.
She is survived by her partner David Mahoney and her sister Anne White. A memorial ceremony will be held in Boston in March 2026.