Forging strong associations
 

Inverness-born composer STUART MACRAE has just completed a five-year Composer-in-Association contract with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He reflects on that experience, and on his new piece for the Scottish Ensemble
 

Arts Journal: Stuart, before we talk about your recent music, how did you get started on the road to composition?

Stuart MacRae: Funnily enough, it began even before I had any formal musical education of any kind. My mum and dad sang in the Inverness Gaelic Choir, but we didn’t have a piano at home. My grandmother did, though, and when we went there I used to just play around making up tunes at the piano, so I started composing really before I did anything else in music.
 

AJ: You’ve moved on a bit from there. How did that develop from those modest beginnings to a professional career?

SM: I never really considered that I could be a composer for a living until I met James MacMillan. He  was conducting Highland Region Youth Orchestra, and I was about 15 at the time – I played flute and occasionally piano in the orchestra. He actively encouraged me to pursue composition, and also let me write a piece for the Youth Orchestra. Until then I hadn’t really come into contact with a real live composer before, and I can remember thinking when I was 12 or 13 that I was born in the wrong time, because all of the composers I knew about seemed to be long dead. I thought I could have been a composer if I had lived 100 years ago, but it wasn’t until I came across James that I realised it wasn’t just a fantasy, and that it might be possible now.
 

AJ: You studied in Durham and London, then lived in Paris for a while. What took you to France, and what kind of experience was that?

SM: I felt it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to go to Paris after London, and I just upped and went, really. It was a bit impetuous, but it was a great place to live. You hear very different music there, for one thing, and it was wonderful just being able to soak up the galleries and so on  in the city, and the whole way of life they have there.
 

AJ: Was it the link with the BBC SSO that led to your move to your current home in Glasgow?

SM: Not entirely. I had been travelling back and forward to Glasgow from London and then Paris anyway, and that had worked out fine, but I felt it was time to move, and Glasgow had started to feel like a home from home anyway. I’ve been here two years now.
 

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