Stuart MacRae is a British composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

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Education and career

Stuart MacRae studied at Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

 with Philip Cashian and Michael Zev Gordon, and subsequently with Simon Bainbridge

Simon Bainbridge

Simon Bainbridge is a British composer, and a professor and former head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and visiting professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky in the United States.-Biography:...

 and Robert Saxton

Robert Saxton

-Biography:After early advice and encouragement from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton took private composition lessons with Elisabeth Lutyens. He went on to study with Robin Holloway at Cambridge University, with Robert Sherlaw Johnson as a post-graduate at Oxford University, and later with Berio....

 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...

. By his mid-twenties he was writing astonishingly original and powerfully expressive works, and was receiving commissions from organisations such as the BBC and the London Sinfonietta as well as being appointed Composer-in-Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is a broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow, Scotland. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation , it is the oldest full-time professional orchestra in Scotland...

. Often inspired by aspects of the natural landscape, MacRae’s style draws on various strands of European modernism, including the music of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

 and most significantly 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:...

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Career highlights

• 1993-7 - studies at Durham University, then Guildhall School of Music and Drama
  Guildhall School of Music and Drama
  Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...
  
  .
• 1996 - finalist in Lloyd’s Bank Young Composers’ workshop.
• 1997 - premiere of The Witch’s Kiss with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Peter Maxwell Davies.
• 1999-2003 - Composer-in-Association of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
• 2001 - MacRae portrait concert conducted by James MacMillan at Edinburgh Festival
  Edinburgh Festival
  The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
  
  .
• 2001 - Violin Concerto premiered at BBC Proms.

Key works

• The Witch’s Kiss (1997; chamber ensemble)
• Sleep at the Feet of Daphne (1999; orchestra)
• Violin Concerto (2001)
• Ancrene Wisse (2002; choir, orchestra)
• Motus (2003; chamber ensemble)
• Three Pictures (2005; orchestra)
• Echo and Narcissus (2006; chamber ensemble/dance)
• Gaudete (2008; soprano and orchestra)
• Remembrance Day (2009; chamber opera)

Selected recordings

• The City Inside - Black Box BBM1058
• Piano Sonata - Delphian DCD 34009
• Tol-Pedn - Kairos 0012442KAI
• Interact - London Sinfonietta SINF CD1-2006
• Violin Concerto, Two Scenes from the Death of Count Ugolino, Motus, Stirling Choruses - NMC D115

External links

• Stuart MacRae's homepage at Novello & Co.