Sydney MacEwan

Sydney MacEwan (1908–1990) was a Scottish tenor and singer of traditional Scottish and Irish songs. [http://www.footstompin.com/artists/father_sydney_macewan]

He was born and brought up in the Springburn area of Glasgow by his mother alone after his father left the family, and was the younger of two brothers. He undertook his singing career on the advice of Sir Compton Mackenzie and John McCormack and began recording for Parlophone in 1934 while still attending the Royal Academy of Music in London. He began touring the world in 1936, playing to audiences in Canada, the USA and Australia, and the tour was repeated in 1938 with even greater success.

However, he chose to abandon his fame and success to enter the Pontifical Scots College in Rome to follow his vocation to become a priest. He was ordained in St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow in 1944. Despite this, he continued to record and tour and further trips to North America and Australia took place until as late as 1956; those concerts helping to provide funding for the building of Oban Cathedral. Sydney also helped with funds to renovate a church in Lochgilphead, on Loch Fyne, which is dedicated to the MacEwan family.

He was featured on the BBC's "This Is Your Life" programme in 1963 and his autobiography, "On the High Cs" was published in 1973. He was survived by his elder brother, Harold.

In 1977 he was narrowly defeated in the election for Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, at which institution he had earlier studied.