St Mary’s Music School marks 50th anniversary with launch of Seven Hills Project
Hattie Fisk
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
St Mary’s Music School, Scotland’s national music school, begins its 50th anniversary countdown with the launch of the Seven Hills Project, in collaboration with Alexander McCall Smith.
The major two-year cultural project will begin with the first of seven premiere performances on 2 July, and will culminate in June 2023 with a birthday concert at Usher Hall.
Literary expert Alexander McCall Smith has joined the project, and has written a collection of seven poems that reflect the character of the seven hills of Edinburgh. Seven composers, who are all linked to St Mary’s Music School, have been commissioned to each write a musical response to one of the poems.
Young Scottish composer Jay Capperauld has written the performance in response to Arthur’s Seat, and McCall Smith’s accompanying poem, entitled Theory of the Earth. This piece will be premiered by senior pupils from St Mary’s Music School and professional percussionist Tom Hunter; this performance will be broadcast as part of the schools summer concert.
The other six commissioned works will be performed across Edinburgh in the next two years as part of St Mary’s Music School’s end-of-term concerts, and will also be available to watch online. The composers and hills are Tom David Wilson: Blackford Hill; Neil Tòmas Smith: Calton Hill; Helen Grime: Braid Hills; Ailie Robertson: Craiglockhart Hill; Simon Smith: Corstorphine Hill and David Horne: Castle Rock.
Dr Valerie Pearson, head of strings at St Mary’s Music School, is leading the project, and said: ‘Seven Hills is a unique project to promote new music in Scotland, to celebrate music and creativity and, ultimately, to use creativity as a way of engaging young people with new music.
‘It was inspired by the School’s desire to celebrate Edinburgh as the wonderful home of our music-making through the topography of its seven hills and the way they connect culture, community and heritage. Importantly, the project is also an opportunity to commission new music, something that the School hasn’t done in a while, and for our own students to perform these new pieces.
‘St Mary’s Music School has very clear connections with professional music organisations across Scotland but the bigger picture of our outreach work is engaging young people. If audiences can see our students performing this new music, what better inspiration for young musicians across Scotland?’
For more information, go to the Summer Concert event page.