Donna McKevitt Overview

Composer of the critically acclaimed album Translucence.
Poetry: Derek Jarman
Music: Donna McKevitt

Featuring: Michael Chance (counter tenor) and Melanie Pappenheim

Donna McKevitt has been a musician since the age of four when she would sit on her front porch improvising classical tunes on her recorder. She studied viola with Gustav Clarkson and voice with Linda Hirst and gained a BA Hons in music at Kingston Polytechnic.

In her final year of her degree she joined the then madrigal group Miranda Sex Garden and went on to record several albums with them on Mute Records, touring Japan, The States and Europe.

During her time with the band she performed with Michael Nyman a piece especially written for the trio at The Festival Hall and supported bands such as Inspiral Carpets, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and Einsturzende Neubauten. She also sang on recordings for The Ballanescu Quartet, Nick Cave and wrote and recorded pieces for Derek Jarman's final film 'Blue'.


She left MSG in '94 and began a collaboration with Greg Roberts of Dreadzone going on to write, sing and play on their albums with Virgin Records. Around that time she was asked to write and perform the strings for Tricky's second album. Donna also worked with choreographer Rosemary Butcher contributing to the music for her piece 'Unbroken View' and played viola for Moby.


While touring and recording full time Donna wrote some settings of Maya Angelou's poems for voice,trumpet and double bass and in '93 began her work on 'Translucence'. It took about five years to complete and was recorded for Warner Classics/Teldec in 97 by Andrew Keener featuring the voices of Michael Chance and Melanie Pappenheim. The work has been performed by the original ensemble at Columbia University which was broadcast live on WNYC Radio at The City of London Festival and more recently at The Tate. It's also been performed at The Edinburgh Festival and in Boston, Tokyo, Sydney and Zurich by other ensembles.

In 2000 Donna moved to Sarajevo where she continued writing, producing settings of Paul Celan's poetry, EE Cummings, Ben Okri and Pablo Neruda. She was asked by Michael Chance to write some songs for him and Nigel North(lutist) Love Songs for Michael settings of three of Michaelangelo's sonnets which were commissioned and performed at The Radovlica Festival in Slovenia.

Whilst in Sarajevo Donna played with several ensembles and also opened a school of English.

Her most recent project is a score to a film commissioned by designers Bodyamr by Emma Summerton for London Fashion Week and she has also been playing in Paris and London with the band The Mabuses.

Donna lives in London with her three year old daughter.