Page 154 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

wasn’t until I put notes down on the page, though, that the texts eventually suggested
themselves. That was an unexpected way of working for me. It hadn’t happened before.”

Another major coup for the Festival is the premiere by the Royal Scottish National

Orchestra, under Edward Gardner, of a brand new version of the epic 1998 cantata The
Quickening, which also features the joint choral forces of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus,

RSNO Junior Chorus and The King’s Singers.

It was the involvement of the last of these – substituting for the original Hilliard

Ensemble, which no longer exists – that inspired MacMillan to add a new movement to

the original four. “I’ve been developing a relationship with The King’s Singers and wrote
a substantial cycle for them, A Rumoured Seed, settings of Michael Symmons Roberts,”

he explains.

“Quickening was originally a collection of five poems by Michael and I set four of them,

which worked fine as a cycle. But since I was writing things for The King’s Singers

recently, I thought

‘Why not bring them on board?’ and set that extra movement from A Rumoured Seed

and incorporated it into the cycle. It gives a new lease of life to the piece.”

The 60th birthday series also brings to Scottish audiences MacMillan’s riotous A Scotch

Bestiary for organ and orchestra (organist Stephan Farr and the BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra) with its barbed references to sectarian anthems. The same concert features

the virtuosic concerto for orchestra, Women of the Apocalypse, conducted by

Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro.

On a smaller scale, the Nash Ensemble perform Fourteen Little Pictures at the Queen’s

Hall, while MacMillan’s new oratorio commemorating the fallen in the First World War,

All the Hills and Vales Along, which wowed audiences at last year’s Cumnock Tryst, gets
a Festival airing at Greyfriars Kirk by the brilliant National Youth Choir of Scotland and

Whitburn Brass Band under Christopher Bell.

At 60, and frequently travelling the world to either hear or conduct performances of his

music, what is it that makes MacMillan tick these days? “The most satisfaction I get as a

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