James MacMillan

Sir James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful composers and performs internationally as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music, and is distinctive for its rhythmic excitement and powerful emotional communication.

MacMillan first became internationally recognised after the extraordinary success of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. His prolific output has since been performed and broadcast around the world. His major works include percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which has received close to 500 performances, a cello concerto for Mstislav Rostropovich and five symphonies. Recent major works include his Percussion Concerto No.2 for Colin Currie, Violin Concerto No.2 for Nicola Benedetti and his Symphony No.5, written for The Sixteen, which was premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2019 as part of a major feature to celebrate his 60th birthday year. Several new works for chorus and orchestra have been premiered in recent seasons including his Christmas Oratorio premiered by the London Philharmonic in 2021 and Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia, a celebration of the power of music, premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony and the Hallé Orchestra in 2023/24. Most recently, a new Concerto for Orchestra was co-commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia and Singapore Symphony.

MacMillan enjoys a successful career as conductor of his own music alongside a range of contemporary and standard repertoire, and is praised for the composer’s insight he brings to each score. He has conducted orchestras such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hungarian National Philharmonic St Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic until 2013 and Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic until 2009.

In the 2025/26 season, MacMillan will serve as the Dresden Philharmonic’s Composerin- Residence, and as part of this will conduct the orchestra in a choral-orchestral programme including his 1989 work Cantos Sagrados. Other highlights of the season include conducting his Christmas Oratorio with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and concerts with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Iceland Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Flemish Radio Choir and the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra. A new oratorio, Angels Unawares, will be premiered by The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia in Rome and London.

MacMillan founded music festival The Cumnock Tryst in October 2014, which takes place annually in his native Ayrshire. In 2024, the Festival celebrated its tenth anniversary and launched an International Summer-School for Composers, directed by MacMillan and open to young composers worldwide. The Cumnock Tryst won the Sky Arts Award for Classical Music in 2024, and the Series and Events Award at the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards.

MacMillan has conducted many of his own works on disc for Chandos, BIS and BMG. A notable highlight is a series on Challenge Records, including MacMillan’s violin concerto A Deep but Dazzling Darkness and percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel with Colin Currie and the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie. His release on Harmonia Mundi, conducting Britten Sinfonia in works including his Oboe Concerto, won the 2016 BBC Music Magazine Award. In 2017, The Sixteen’s recording of MacMillan’s Stabat Mater was nominated for a Gramophone Award and won the Diapason d'Or Choral Award.

MacMillan was awarded a CBE in 2004 and a Knighthood in 2015. He was appointed a Fellow of the Ivors Academy in 2024.