Page 152 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

31 July 2019

Edinburgh International

Festival: Sir James MacMillan

prepares for premiere of

Fifth Symphony

As he prepares for the world premiere of his Fifth Symphony – and a showcase
of his best work – Sir James MacMillan talks to Ken Walton.

By Ken Walton

Of the three Edinburgh International Festivals in which Sir James MacMillan has featured
significantly, this year’s celebration of his 60th birthday is perhaps the one he is most at ease
with.

Think back 20 years to his notorious Festival lecture, Scotland’s Shame, which

castigated Scotland for its endemic anti-Catholicism, fuelling vociferous debate and

personal threats to the composer and his family. “I’ve been gearing up for questions on
this recently because it’s the 20th anniversary,” he admits. “I’m kind of avoiding it. I’ve

just moved on. I just don’t want to be drawn back to it because it was fraught. It wasn’t

nice.”

Is he a different person nowadays? “Yes, in the sense that I was up for a barney then.

Maybe I pick my fights more carefully now.”

Six years earlier, the then International Festival director Brian McMaster put the 34-

year-old MacMillan’s music under the world spotlight in his 1993 programme. “That
was kind of terrifying and put me under the cosh a bit,” recalls MacMillan.

Professionally, he had suddenly become the composer everyone wanted to commission,

so demands on him were high. And he was dealing with a lot in his personal life, too.

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