The St Magnus Festival is an annual 6-day arts festival which takes place on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

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History and Management

The Festival was founded in 1977 by a group including the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

, who is a resident of Orkney. The Artistic Director is Alasdair Nicolson, who succeeded Glenys Hughes in 2010. The artistic programme consists mainly of music alongside drama, dance, literature and the visual arts and is managed by a small staff and many local volunteers, who also offer accommodation for visiting artists.

Artists and Repertoire

Artists who have appeared at the festival include Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie

Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, DBE is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society.-Early life:Glennie was born and raised in Aberdeenshire...

, John Harle

John Harle

John Harle is an English saxophonist and composer.-Biography:John Harle - SaxophonistJohn Harle is one of the world’s leading saxophonists, and the most significant performer of the saxophone in the concert hall today...

, Joanna MacGregor

Joanna MacGregor

Joanna MacGregor is a classical, jazz and contemporary pianist.-Biography:MacGregor grew up in North London, and was educated at home by her Seventh-day Adventist parents until she attended South Hampstead High School at the age of 11. Her mother is a piano teacher who studied at the Royal...

, Steven Isserlis

Steven Isserlis

Steven Isserlis CBE is a British cellist. He is distinguished for his diverse repertoire, distinctive sound and total command of phrasing. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was much influenced by the great iconoclast of Russian cello playing, Daniil Shafran...

, John Lill

John Lill

John Lill CBE is an English classical pianist.-Biography:Lill studied at the Royal College of Music and with Wilhelm Kempff. His talent emerged at an early age, as he gave his first piano recital at the age of nine. At age 18, he performed Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto under Sir Adrian Boult...

, Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt, OC, OBE is a Canadian classical pianist. She holds British nationality through her father, Godfrey, who was the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario for almost fifty years.-Career:...

, Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little is an English violinist.She studied under Pauline Scott at the Yehudi Menuhin School and later at the Guildhall School of Music, coming to prominence as a string section finalist in the 1982 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition...

, Colin Currie, Lisa Milne, Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis (pianist)

Paul Lewis is an English classical pianist. His father worked at the Liverpool docks and his mother was a local council worker; there were no musicians in his family background....

 and Stephen Osborne. Many orchestras and ensembles have visited the festival both from Scotland and England.

Festival poets have included Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...

, Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009...

, Jackie Kay

Jackie Kay

Jackie Kay MBE is a Scottish poet and novelist.-Biography:Jackie Kay was born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Jonathan C. Okafor who later became a prominent tropical plant taxonomist...

, Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion

Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...

, Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....

 and Gwyneth Lewis

Gwyneth Lewis

Gwyneth Lewis is a Welsh poet, and was the first National Poet for Wales.-Biography:Born into a Welsh speaking family, Lewis's father started teaching her English when her mother went into hospital to give birth to her sister....

. The National Theatre of Scotland

National Theatre of Scotland

The National Theatre of Scotland is a theatre company established in February 2006. The company performs in a wide range of venues including theatres, halls and found spaces across Scotland....

 also appeared at the Festival in 2007.

Commissions

The St Magnus Festival has commissioned music from composers including James MacMillan, Judith Weir

Judith Weir

Judith Weir CBE, is a British composer.-Biography:Her music has been appreciated by audiences and critics alike. She trained with John Tavener while still at school and subsequently with Robin Holloway at King's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1976...

, Simon Holt

Simon Holt

Simon Holt is a British composer.-Biography:Holt was educated at Bolton School. Shortly after graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, he became firmly established on the new music circuit with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and the Nash...

, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett

Richard Rodney Bennett

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...

, Thea Musgrave

Thea Musgrave

Thea Musgrave CBE is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music.-Biography:Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Thea Musgrave studied at the University of Edinburgh and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger...

, Sally Beamish

Sally Beamish

Sally Beamish is a British composer of chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community....

, Edward McGuire

Edward McGuire (composer)

Edward McGuire is a Scottish composer.He studied composition with James Iliff at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1966 to 1970 and then with Ingvar Lidholm in Stockholm in 1971....

, William Sweeney

William Sweeney (composer)

-Biography:Born in Glasgow, he attended Knightswood Secondary School. He studied the clarinet and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1967 to 1970, and at the Royal Academy of Music from 1970 to 1973, where his teachers included Alan Hacker and Harrison Birtwistle. He...

, Gordon McPherson and David Horne

David Horne (composer)

David Horne is a Scottish composer, pianist, and teacher.A resident composer with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for four years, he has been awarded several commissions...

. Premières of works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies have included works written in collaboration with or inspired by the work of the Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown , was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist, whose work has a distinctly Orcadian character...

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Visual arts, drama and dance projects have also been commissioned for the festival, including a trio of original plays by Alan Plater

Alan Plater

Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...

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Community participation and additional events

Education and community projects have included many residents of Orkney. The Festival's Chorus includes around 130 singers from all parts of the archipelago. The festival prides itself on its involvement with the local community and the support provided by local residents.

The Festival on Tour project has visited Orkney's outer islands to give workshops and performances for schools and communities. Beginning in 2006, a type of Fringe Festival called MagFest has included late-night shows, circus, cabaret, comedy, music and children’s events. Orkney Conducting Course, St Magnus Composers' Course and, from 2011, a Writer's Course also run alongside the Festival.