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.

AJ: The BBC link seems a tremendous opportunity for a young composer.

SM: It was fantastic. It was a three year scheme initially, then it was extended to five, and ended late last year, although the SSO are playing another piece of mine in Glasgow in March, and I hope I’ll retain a contact with them.

AJ: How do you look back on that experience?

SM: It was a really unparalleled opportunity for a young composer to be given, to have the chance to work so closely and so regularly with an orchestra of that standard. It gave me a fantastic insight into how an orchestra works and how to write for an orchestra, and also to write with a specific individual in the orchestra in mind. If you know a particular player well, you often write a little differently. Those were all great advantages, and it was great fun as well.

AJ: The scheme closed with a concert devoted entirely to your music at the Tramway in Glasgow in November – how did that work out?

SM: Fantastic. It is really quiet daunting to know that a whole concert is going to feature three quite big pieces of yours in a row, but by the end I was absolutely delighted. The quality of the performances were so high, and it received a good reception from a sizeable audience, so that was all really satisfying.

AJ: You have a commission from the Scottish Ensemble on tour this month, including an Inverness performance. Tell us a little about the new piece.

SM: It’s called Hamartia, and it’s written for a solo cellist, Li-Wei, and twelve string players, which is the usual line-up of the Ensemble. It’s not a cello concerto in the standard sense. It only has one movement, and it’s a bit different from the previous pieces I have written for solo instrument and ensemble in that it mixes the fast and slow materials together. It is almost like a collage of different materials, and they are shared between the soloist and the ensemble, although when the music is more soloistic in nature, it is generally the solo cello which takes that material.

AJ: Are there solo roles for any of the Ensemble players within it?

SM: Only once or twice, and then usually in a kind of duet relationship with the cellist. Basically it shifts the emphasis on any more soloistic or more expressive writing away from the ensemble and onto the solo cello, while the ensemble has a more metrical, at times almost mechanistic function in this piece.

AJ: What is the significance of the title?

SM: The word ‘hamartia’ means the tragic flaw, or the flaw that a hero in Greek tragedy has that eventually brings about their downfall. I came across it by accident in a dictionary, and I liked both the word and its meaning. Later on a Greek friend told me that the word it is derived from, ‘amartia’, actually means sin!

AJ: Is there a programmatic element to the piece?

SM: No. I’d like to stress that there is no sort of narrative implied in the music about downfall or anything similar by using that title, but I liked that idea of things being inherently flawed and bringing about their own ultimate downfall.

AJ: Have you worked with the Scottish Ensemble before?

SM: No, I haven’t, and it will also be the first time that I have worked with Li-Wei as well, although he has worked with the Ensemble.

AJ: Will you be involved in the rehearsal period?

SM: Probably closer to the performances. My feeling is that is better for the composer to come into that process quite late, so that the players have had a chance to work on it, and I can hear it as it’s getting close to ready. Sometimes with a new piece it is good to be there from the start, but I feel I usually don’t have much input during the early rehearsal process, and they can always get in touch for specific queries.

AJ: Is it written specifically with these players in mind?

SM: In theory it could be for any string ensemble, but one of the challenges for the players is that each of them has their own distinct part, so it does need a minimum of twelve players. That is how it is designed, but not with the specific sound of any one ensemble in mind.

AJ: Finally, Stuart, what is coming up for you after these performances?

SM: Well, I have the piece I mentioned for the BBC SSO coming up in March, at the Bute Hall in Glasgow on 1 March, in fact. That’s an orchestral piece entitled Sleep at the Feet of Daphne. I’m also working on music for a short film for Channel 4, which is probably going to go out in late March or early April, and I’m writing a piece for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which we hope will premiere in May 2005. That will be an orchestral piece with no soloist.

AJ: What is the film you are scoring?

SM: It’s a short 11-minute dramatisation about the experience of watching the Iraq war through the broadcast media, looking at things like the effect that constant media coverage has on us. The producer-director is a friend of mine called Beadie Finzi. We don’t have a title yet!

AJ: Finzi? Is she related to the composer Gerald Finzi?

SM: Yes, she’s his granddaughter. She has done a number of films about artists before, so this is a departure for her as well.
 
Stuart MacRae was born in Inverness in 1976, and attended Charleston Academy. He studied music at Durham University with Philip Cashian, Sohrab Uduman and Michael Zev Gordon, and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton.  He was a finalist in the 1996 Lloyd’s Bank Young Composer’s Workshop. His music has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, The Hebrides Ensemble, Haffner Wind Ensemble, Edinburgh String Quartet, Britten Sinfonia, Orchestre de Lyon, and others. His music is published exclusively by Novello & Co. Limited.
 
 
The Scottish Ensemble perform Stuart MacRae’s Hamartia and music by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Grainger and Leighton at the following venues:

Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen, Monday 23 February 2004
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Tuesday 24 February 2004
St John’s Kirk, Perth, Wednesday 25 February 2004
Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thursday 26 February 2004
Marryat Hall, Dundee, Friday 27 February 2004
Queen’s Hall Edinburgh, Saturday 28 February 2004
 
(Stuart MacRae spoke to Kenny Mathieson)