Sir John Blackwood McEwen

Sir John Blackwood McEwen (1868 – 1948) was a Scottish composer and teacher. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Frederick Corder from 1893–5, returning as a professor of harmony and composition in 1898 and succeeding Alexander Mackenzie as principal in 1924. In 1931 he was knighted, stepping down from his position as principal in 1936. McEwen’s large-scale works include a Viola Concerto (1901), three Border Ballads (1906–8), the ‘Solway’ Symphony (1911), and the choral-orchestral Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1901–5), but his output is dominated by the 17 string quartets he wrote between 1893 and 1947. McEwen died in 1948 at the age of eighty.