Composing His Thoughts

ROB ADAMS catches up with pianist and composer JAMES ROSS ahead of the pianist’s concert at Celtic Connections

CAITHNESS-BORN pianist James Ross makes his debut as an orchestral composer in March when the first movement of a three-part symphony specially commissioned for the Caithness Orchestra receives its first performances in Wick and Thurso.

The new work, funded by Highland 2007 and with further instalments scheduled for completion respectively later in 2006 and early in 2007, marks a major step up from Ross’s Celtic Connections New Voices commission, ‘An Cuan’, which was premiered in January this year.

“’An Cuan’ was essentially a suite for piano with the other instruments – fiddles, cello, bass, saxophone and percussion – accompanying it,” says Ross, a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama’s BA in Scottish Music course. “This time, although I composed on the piano, I’ve had to take it out of the score altogether, which felt a bit strange at first but I’ve now become used to it.”

Writing for the full symphonic range was initially daunting. However, Ross was helped enormously by the experience he gained on Distil, the weekend courses which are organised by the Scottish Traditional Music Trust to encourage musicians from the Scottish tradition used to writing tunes or tune sets to compose more ambitious, extended works.

…I’m really looking forward to having the grand at home. I’m sure it’s going to help me develop as a player and as a composer, too.

“Eddie McGuire, who plays with the Whistlebinkies folk group as well as being a hugely experienced composer for both small and large ensembles, was a tutor on the course and was absolutely invaluable,” says Ross.

“To start writing for an orchestra from scratch, I would have had to get all the arranging theory books out and learned all about the various instruments’ ranges. But Eddie was my book, if you like. He showed me how to orchestrate and we spent a long time going over my ideas and sorting out what would work and what wouldn’t, and looking at other possibilities.”
The piece, as yet, doesn’t have a narrative theme.

“I did a lot of thinking before I actually sat down at the piano, trying to envisage where the music might go and what I wanted it to sound like,” says Ross. “But eventually I just began writing a melody and improvised on it and developed it. So unlike ‘An Cuan’, which was intended as a description of the Caithness coast, there’s no specific thread there.

“But now that I’ve completed the first movement, it might suggest something that I can follow up in the second and third movements. Really, my aim was to create a strong melody and just make the music as interesting as possible over its ten minutes duration. So I hope I’ve done that.”

These are exciting times for Ross, who was born and grew up in Wick and whose interest in music really took off when he began accordion lessons with Caithness’s great tunesmith and master of fiddle, accordion, guitar, banjo, you-name-it, the late Addie Harper.

His first album, simply entitled ‘James Ross’, features solo piano pieces as well as small group works, and is scheduled for release this month on top Scottish traditional music label Greentrax, with an official launch at Ross’s Celtic Connections concert at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow (20 January).

Before that, however, Ross was due to take delivery of a seven foot Yamaha grand piano, courtesy of the Dewar Arts Fund set up in the memory of the former First Minister, Donald Dewar. Ross is exuberant at the idea of having a “proper piano” in his Edinburgh flat, even if there won’t be room, he says, for much else in his modest living room.

“Just to be able to sit down and play on a grand piano whenever I want – neighbours permitting, of course – is going to be such a boost,” he says. “I’ve been used to struggling away on an old upright or using an electronic keyboard, and neither of these is ideal. I’ll have to keep using the electronic keyboard on some gigs, like folk clubs and so on, but I’m really looking forward to having the grand at home. I’m sure it’s going to help me develop as a player and as a composer, too.”

Composition wasn’t a priority when Ross arrived at the RSAMD, where the accordion gradually gave way to piano as his first instrument. A pianist who sees himself as working within the tradition, he studied classical techniques to give him the tools for his primary interests, interpreting and arranging traditional tunes. His keyboard style is also influenced by jazz pianists, including Keith Jarrett, and improvisation has become central both to his solo work and his role as accompanist.

“It was Mary McCarthy, my teacher at the Academy, who made me really want to explore the piano as a traditional instrument,” he says. “Then when I went to the University of Limerick to study with Micheal O Suilleabhain, he opened my ears to all sorts of possibilities. The piano isn’t necessarily seen as a traditional instrument and there aren’t that many of us pianists working in the tradition, but Micheal was totally inspiring, and Patsy Broderick, who used to play with Arcady and really plays from within the Irish tradition, was another inspiration. I only had a day with her but I learned so much from that one day.”

Much of Ross’s work – for practical reasons and until such time as he might regularly draw an audience of his own sufficient to fill piano-owning concert halls – lies in accompanying singers and fiddlers. Which he enjoys, particularly if the people he’s accompanying allow him a free hand.

“I really like approaching a gig with no set idea of what I’m going to play,” he says. “I’ll know the songs or the tunes we’re going to play, of course, and it doesn’t always work if there are more than two of us onstage. I have to consider the other players in that situation. But with Anna Wendy Stevenson, for example, who’s a really creative musician on fiddle and viola, there’s a real understanding between us. We can just let the music go where it goes, and I find that really interesting.”

© Rob Adams, 2006