The Seven Hills Project: Scottish landmarks

An ambitious new music project inspired by Edinburgh's Seven Hills began as a celebration for St Mary's Music School and his since blossomed across Scotland. David Kettle discovers the secret of its success.

Students from St Mary's Music School with novelist Alexander McCall Smith and composer Ailie Robertson - N DOVE

The Seven Hills Project, you could say, started off ambitious, and then got even more so. When St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh – Scotland's only specialist music school, and one of just nine specialist music and dance schools across the UK – dreamt up the scheme for its 50th anniversary, it was already a bold undertaking. The school would commission seven new pieces of music, one for each of the Scottish capital's hills. Since then, however, the project has ballooned, bringing in teachers and students from right across Scotland alongside some of the nation's most accomplished composers, and even setting its sights on publishing, online resources, sound walks and more.