1. Sir James Loy MacMillan, TOSD was born on 16 July 1959 and is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.
14 Facts About James MacMillan
1. 2.
James MacMillan's father is James MacMillan, a carpenter, and his mother is Ellen MacMillan.
3.
James MacMillan studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken, where he gained an undergraduate degree and then a PhD degree in 1987.
4.
James MacMillan was a lecturer in music at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1986 to 1988.
5.
James MacMillan came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990.
6.
James MacMillan was asked by Mstislav Rostropovich to compose his Cello Concerto, which Rostropovich premiered in 1997.
7.
James MacMillan's music is infused with the spiritual and the political.
8.
James MacMillan said that his aim in writing this work was to emphasise 'a deeper solidarity with the poor of that subcontinent' in the context of political repression.
9.
Weeks after the opening ceremony, James MacMillan launched a vigorous attack on sectarianism in Scotland, particularly anti-Catholicism, in a speech titled "Scotland's Shame".
10.
James MacMillan was composer and conductor with the BBC Philharmonic from 2000 to 2009, following which he took up a position as principal guest conductor with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic.
11.
James MacMillan is an honorary fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and Professor of Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at St Mary's College, St Andrews.
12.
James MacMillan is one of the patrons of St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, the London Oratory School Schola, The British Art Music Series, and of the Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.
13.
James MacMillan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004, and a Knight Bachelor in 2015.
14.
James MacMillan married Lynne Frew in 1983; they have three children.