Sir James MacMillan will be the guest speaker at the Melrose Music Festival Preview Concert on 11th May. He is the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation and performs internationally as a conductor. 

He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken, where he gained an undergraduate degree and then a PhD degree in 1987. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often working on education projects.

He came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. Isobel Gowdie was one of many women executed for witchcraft in 17th-century Scotland. Sir James founded the Cumnock Tryst festival in Scotland in 2014 and was awarded a Knighthood in the 2015 Queen's Birthday honours. Further biographical information can be found here