James MacMillan

James MacMillan CBE was born in Ayrshire, but now lives in Glasgow. He studied music at Edinburgh University before going on to Doctoral studies at Durham. He has become one of today’s most prolific living composers receiving commissions from all over the world, and was the feature of a South Bank Show programme in 2004. He is also known as a conductor, working with the BBC Philharmonic between 2000 and 2009; he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic in 2010.

MacMillan’s international career was launched in 1990 after the premiere of The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and his percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel was premiered by Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has since become the world's most performed concerto composed in the 1990s, including many performances by another Scottish percussionist, Colin Currie, as well as by orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia and Detroit Symphony.

Other important works include Seven Last Words from the Cross, commissioned by the Scottish Ensemble and Capella Nova, which was screened on BBC TV from St. Aloysius Church during Holy Week in 1994, Inés de Castro premiered by Scottish Opera in 2001, and The World’s Ransoming, for Mstislav Rostropovich. Recent works include Piano Concerto No. 2  commissioned by New York City Ballet; A Scotch Bestiary for the Los Angeles Philarmonic and Wayne Marshall for the inauguration of the new organ at Disney Hall; The Sacrifice for Welsh National Opera, and a St. John Passion, a co-commission between the London Symphony, Boston Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras and the Berlin Radio Choir.

His work has been extensively recorded, and has won awards such as the Gramophone Contemporary Music Record of the Year and Classic CD Award for Contemporary Music, both in 1993. A series with Chandos and the BBC Philharmonic won a Classical Brit Award in 2006.