Sir James MacMillan | |
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 MacMillan at the 2012 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music | |
| Born | 16 July 1959 Kilwinning, Scotland |
| Education | University of Edinburgh |
| Occupations |
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| Organizations | BBC Philharmonic |
| Awards | |
Sir James Loy MacMillan, CBE (born 16 July 1959) is a Catholic Scottish classical composer and conductor.
MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. His father is James MacMillan, a carpenter, [1] and his mother is Ellen MacMillan (née Loy). [2]
He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, [3] and at Durham University with John Casken, where he gained an undergraduate degree and then a PhD degree in 1987. At Durham he was a member of the College of St Hild and St Bede as an undergraduate student [4] and the Graduate Society while studying for his PhD. [5] He was a lecturer in music at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1986 to 1988. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often working on education projects. As a young man he was briefly a member of the Young Communist League. [1]
He came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. Isobel Gowdie was one of many women executed for witchcraft in 17th-century Scotland. According to the composer, "On behalf of the Scottish people the work craves absolution and offers Isobel Gowdie the mercy and humanity that was denied her in the last days of her life." [6]
The work's international acclaim spurred more high-profile commissions, including a percussion concerto for fellow Scot Evelyn Glennie: Veni, Veni, Emmanuel . It was premiered in 1992 and has become MacMillan's most performed work. He was also asked by Mstislav Rostropovich to compose his Cello Concerto, which was premiered by Rostropovich in 1997.
Further successes have included his second opera The Sacrifice, commissioned by Welsh National Opera, Autumn 2007, which won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, and the St John Passion jointly commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra [7] and conducted by Sir Colin Davis at its world premiere in April 2008. He was awarded the British Composer Award for Liturgical Music, for his Strathclyde Motets, in December 2008.
In 2019, The Guardian ranked MacMillan's Stabat Mater the 23rd greatest work of art music since 2000. [8]
In 2024, he was became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy, the 26th person to be so honoured. [9]
MacMillan's music is infused with the spiritual and the political. His Catholic faith has inspired many of his sacred works; for example, a Magnificat (1999), and several masses. This central strand of his life and compositions was marked by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in early 2005, with a survey of his music entitled From Darkness into Light. MacMillan and his wife are lay Dominicans, and he has collaborated with Michael Symmons Roberts, a Catholic poet, and also Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.[ citation needed ] Perhaps his most political work is Cantos Sagrados (1990), a setting of Latin American poetry by Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendoza, combining elements of liberation theology with more conventional religious texts. MacMillan has explicitly stated that his aim in writing this work was to emphasise 'a deeper solidarity with the poor of that subcontinent' in the context of political repression. [10]
Scottish traditional music has also had a profound musical influence, and is frequently discernible in his works. When the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999 after 292 years, a fanfare composed by MacMillan accompanied Elizabeth II into the parliamentary chamber. Weeks after the opening ceremony, MacMillan launched a vigorous attack on sectarianism in Scotland, particularly anti-Catholicism, in a speech entitled "Scotland's Shame". [11]
His Mass of 2000 was commissioned by Westminster Cathedral and contains sections which the congregation may join in singing. [12] Similarly, the St Anne's Mass and Galloway Mass do not require advanced musicianship, being designed to be taught to a congregation.
One of his most important commissions (by the Bishops' Conferences of England & Wales and of Scotland) was to write a new mass setting for choir and congregation to be sung at two of the three masses celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI during his apostolic and state visit to Great Britain in 2010. First sung at mass at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, on 16 September, it was sung again at the mass and beatification of John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on 19 September). He was also commissioned to write a setting of the text Tu es Petrus (Matthew 16:18) for the Pope's entry at mass at Westminster Cathedral on 18 September.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast in 2020–2021 Faith in Music, Macmillan's examination of religious faith in the work of seven composers from Thomas Tallis to Leonard Bernstein. [13]
MacMillan was composer and conductor with the BBC Philharmonic from 2000 to 2009, following which he took up a position as principal guest conductor with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic.[ citation needed ] His collaboration with Michael Symmons Roberts continued with his second opera, The Sacrifice (based on the ancient Welsh tales of the Mabinogion), being premiered by Welsh National Opera in Autumn 2007. Sundogs, a large-scale work for a cappella choir, also using text by Symmons Roberts, was premiered by the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble in August 2006.
He is an honorary fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and Professor of Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at St Mary's College, St Andrews. He is one of the patrons of St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, the London Oratory School Schola, The British Art Music Series, [14] and of the Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004, and a Knight Bachelor in 2015. [15]
In 2008, he became honorary patron of London Chamber Orchestra's LCO New: Explore project, which explores links between music and other art forms and fosters emerging creative talent in composition. [16]
MacMillan married Lynne Frew in 1983; they have two daughters and a son. [2] [17] He also had a granddaughter, Sara Maria, who had Dandy–Walker syndrome. [18]
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The Confession of Isobel Gowdie is a work for large symphony orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan.
The Sacrifice is an opera in three acts composed by James MacMillan with a libretto by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts based on the Branwen story of the Welsh mythology collection, the Mabinogion. The world premiere took place on 22 September 2007 at the Donald Gordon Theatre of the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff. The production was staged by Welsh National Opera, directed by Katie Mitchell and conducted by the composer.
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The Percussion Concerto No. 2 is a concerto for solo percussion and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was jointly commissioned by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the São Paulo State Symphony. It was first performed on November 7, 2014 at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands, by percussionist Colin Currie and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under conductor James Gaffigan. The composition is MacMillan's second percussion concerto after 1992's Veni, Veni, Emmanuel.
The Symphony No. 3 is the third symphony by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The piece was first performed on April 17, 2003 in NHK Hall, Tokyo, by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Charles Dutoit.
The World's Ransoming is a concerto for cor anglais and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. It was the first of three interrelated compositions in MacMillan's Easter triptych Triduum commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra. Its world premiere was given by the soloist Christine Pendrill and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kent Nagano at the Barbican Centre on 11 July 1996.
Quickening is a cantata for countertenor, two tenors, two baritones, children's choir, chorus, and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was co-commissioned by The Proms and the Philadelphia Orchestra and was completed in 1998. Its world premiere was performed by the Hilliard Ensemble, the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and the Westminster Cathedral Boys' Choir under the direction of Andrew Davis at Royal Albert Hall, London, on 5 September 1999. The journalist Damian Thompson of The Spectator described it as "one of MacMillan's masterpieces."
The Trombone Concerto is a composition for trombone and orchestra written by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for their principal trombonist Jörgen van Rijen and co-commissioned by a consortium of orchestras comprising the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonisches Orchester des Staatstheaters Cottbus. It was first performed by Jörgen van Rijen and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on 20 April 2017. The piece is dedicated to Jörgen van Rijen and in memory of Sara Maria MacMillan, the composer's granddaughter, who died shortly before its composition.
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