John McLeod (b. 1934) - Full biography
For over 30 years John McLeod has been at the forefront of contemporary Scottish music and is still one of the UK’s busiest and most prolific composers. Born and educated in Aberdeen, he has been resident in Edinburgh since 1970. He first studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music, London with Jack Brymer, Reginald Kell and Gervase de Peyer, but later changed direction and became a composition pupil of Sir Lennox Berkeley. Subsequently he came under the influence of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski whom he knew and admired. Conducting studies were undertaken with Sir Adrian Boult.
John has won important awards for his work including the prestigious Guinness Prize for British composers. In 1989 he was elected a Fellow of the RAM and in 2005 and 2010 was nominated for a British Composer Award. Renowned also as a teacher, he was Director of Music at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh for eleven years before holding Lectureships at the RSAMD, RAM and Edinburgh Napier University. Latterly he was Head of Composing for Film and TV at the London College of Music (Thames Valley University) and the Ida Carroll Research Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music where he specialised in the works of Messiaen, Boulez and Birtwistle.
His brilliantly coloured orchestral and vocal music has been commissioned, performed and recorded in many countries by leading orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the RSNO, the SCO (who made McLeod their Associate Composer from 1980-82), the Orchestra of the Staatstheater, Saarbrücken and the Nashville Symphony (USA).
The BBC SSO has broadcast 12 of his major orchestral works over the years and in 2010 the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland achieved the 20th performance of a McLeod work by featuring The Gokstad Ship in their Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts. In 1994 he travelled to Poland to conduct the Polish Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra of Krakow in a CD of his orchestral music entitled Visions from the North.
Soloists such as Evelyn Glennie, Colin Currie, Jane Manning, Benjamin Luxon, Raimund Gilvan, Peter Donohoe, Murray McLachlan, Sam Haywood and Mark Tanner have all performed his music and conductors including Sir Charles Groves, Sir Alexander Gibson, Neeme Jarvi, Janos Furst, Takuo Yuasa, Rumon Gamba, Gary Walker and a host of younger conductors have all included McLeod’s works in their programmes. His music has also been featured at international festivals including the London Proms, Edinburgh, Canterbury, Aberdeen’s ‘Sound’ Festival and St Magnus (Orkney). Most of his works have also been heard on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, BBC TV and Channel 4.
His compositions cover most musical genres – orchestral (including concertos for piano, percussion, clarinet, guitar and symphonic song-cycles), choral works, church music, songs, instrumental and chamber music as well as scores for film and TV. Described by The Scotsman as ‘a major force in contemporary Scottish music’, McLeod is the subject of a new article by Francis Morris in the latest Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Recent highlights have included Colin Currie performing the Percussion Concerto with the BBC SSO under Yasuo Shinozaki, Chinese Whispers for brass (nominated for a British Composer Award in 2005), a Clarinet Concerto, Piano Sonata No.4 and a large-scale orchestral piece Fling (commissioned by BBC Radio 3) and recently performed by 180 musicians. His new piano work Haflidi’s Pictures was commissioned by the pianist Mark Tanner and premiered by him (with the composer narrating) at the Wigmore Hall in July 2008. Mark’s CD of this work on the Priory label has received international praise and attention.
In 2009 there were numerous performances of McLeod’s music in Saarbrücken, Warsaw, USA and throughout the UK including a new work for flute and piano Quicksilver which was again premiered at the Wigmore Hall. 2010 saw the premiere of Imagined Corners (Carlisle Festival commission) for choir, brass and organ and his new Guitar Concerto (commissioned by three orchestras - with Ian Watt as soloist) was nominated for another British Composer Award.
McLeod now has a new association with Chandos Records who have taken ten of his orchestral and instrumental works and these can be downloaded as an MP3 file at www.theclassicalshop.net and entering John McLeod Mp3 in the search box.
© John McLeod, 2011.