The State of Scottish Music

Scotland has suffered for many years from what's become known as ‘the cultural cringe’. This is the belief that everything outside Scotland is more important or of greater value than something or someone from within Scotland. I had a battle with the previous Edinburgh Festival director Jonathan Mills over his neglect of Scottish culture in the Festival. His stock reply was ‘this is an international festival. Well true it is, but its mission statement is ‘to bring to the world the best of Scottish culture’, something he didn't seem to be interested in! Indeed it's worth noting that there has never been a Scottish Director of the Edinburgh Festival in its 70-year history, although to be fair Fergus Linehan the current director is an Irishman who knows Scotland well. It’s also true that most of our other major cultural organisations have been led by people from outside Scotland, often with little knowledge of Scotland, for example the first two CEOs of Creative Scotland both of whom left quickly under a cloud.

Of course classical music and opera are international in their subject matter, but they should in my opinion have well-funded organisations one of whose jobs is to give opportunities to young Scottish musicians and singers. Indeed in past lives I have been involved in supporting young musicians in my role as an MEP when I was in charge of music policy for the European Parliament and helped initiate and support programmes for young people, such as the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Opera programme and Swinging Europe for young jazz musicians. When I worked in the Scottish Parliament, I organised a campaign of support to properly fund Scottish Opera. It’s therefore sad to see that our Scottish musical institutions seem to be somewhat neglecting to offer opportunities to young Scottish musicians as I detail below.

There has recently been quite a lot of chatter in England about the lack of opportunities for British musicians, especially singers, to appear in public with British companies and orchestras, and this is perhaps a good time to cast a spotlight on the classical music scene in Scotland.

Sadly, that spotlight shines on an even greater discrepancy between Scottish institutions and Scottish musicians. The current excellent digital seasons being streamed by the SCO and the RSNO reveal a noticeable lack of Scottish accents at any point in the programmes. Almost none of the introductions by members of the orchestras or the soloists are by Scottish musicians, and this invites the question ‘Where are the Scots?’ ‘Are they all at the back desks or down the line?’ With the notable exceptions of Ms Cargill and Ms Benedetti there are no publicly recognised and lauded Scottish instrumentalists, singers or conductors? This situation has gone on for decades now and can’t just be excused by the famous ‘Scottish Cringe’, by which we mean that very Scottish desire to avoid the limelight and to appear self-deprecating.

The same problem is seen at Scottish Opera, where there appears to be little willingness or intent to promote Scottish singers, a trend that has been obvious for over 30 years. The much-trailed online performance of ‘Hansel and Gretel’, coming soon to a screen near you, though certainly promising in terms of quality, features no Scottish singers. The last production in rehearsal before lockdown, Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, a piece with a very big cast, boasted, apart from the children’s roles, one Scot, and one only. The same opera, in a wonderful production in the 1970s and 80s, was full of Scottish singers, as was, in the wider seasons’ context, the whole chorus and most of the orchestra. Major roles, which were judged to be difficult to cast locally or occasionally impossible, were given to guest artists from abroad or England, but priority was given to Scottish singers in general. Sir Alexander Gibson would not have it any other way. His sad early death was perhaps the one most significant event in later Scottish Opera history, as without his huge personality and drive (which led to the founding of Scottish Opera in the first place), there was no one to speak up for the idea of an indigenous company, bringing great music to the Scottish public, using largely Scottish artists. His obvious Scottishness was a huge factor in the establishment of our  national opera company, and, during his long tenure of the post of Principal Conductor of the (then) SNO, his position as the most important Scottish conductor in the world gave great weight to the notion of Scots as serious artists.

The appointment of Sir Donald Runnicles as principal conductor of the BBCSSO was a promising step, but he had spent all his previous creative life in Europe and the USA and naturally knew little about the musical scene in Scotland. His performances were always excellent, but even he rarely included Scots in his concerts. Now, of course he divides his time between Berlin and Wyoming, so we will sadly see even less of him here.

It may be that the internationalising of further education has meant that, for example, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, has to pack its courses with foreign students to balance the books, as do many of Scotland’s universities, but it can only mean that fewer Scots get the chance to study there. It may also be that modern education has marginalised classical music to the extent that fewer Scottish pupils are learning instruments and taking singing lessons, but surely we need to have some sort of plan for the future that attracts more Scottish students into music and then on into the profession?

We don’t want here to get into the arguments that Alasdair Gray stirred up with his definition of English administrators in Scotland as “Settlers” (good) and “Colonists” (bad), but it does seem that many people involved in Arts administration who come to work in Scotland (with several notable exceptions) see this country as a visiting post on the way to some higher position in the Arts (perhaps in England or abroad), and are thus less aware of the importance of encouraging home grown talent. They see, perhaps, their role as providing excellent performances in Scotland, but don’t look internally as much as they might. There is no doubt that the standards of all the Scottish classical music institutions are very high, and this is to be much applauded, as we do on this website, but there is a sense that our own contributions to these arts could be more obvious.

This is clearly less of a problem in the sphere of non-classical music, particularly the folk side, but that is largely the result of the word ‘folk’ telling us that this is the music of the people. Somehow, we need to convince Scottish youth that playing instruments and singing is a worthwhile enterprise, and that a career in music is a wonderful thing. Sadly, neither the Scottish Government nor the UK Government have shown any great interest in high culture in recent years, and this shows few signs of improvement. Indeed, the recent furore about councils insisting on parents paying for instrumental lessons at school, and the Scottish Government to a large extent sitting back and watching, is unfortunately typical of Government understanding of the High Arts. Compared to many other countries around Europe, we lag far behind in support of artistic endeavours. Subsidy of the Arts is seen as a very low priority for both Holyrood and Westminster.  Perhaps we might find some keen politician with artistic leanings to step forward at Holyrood to speak up for our native talent. It would be a refreshing change.

There are, it must be said, some green shoots showing limply above the soil. Two of the four Scottish Opera ‘Emerging Artists’ are Scottish, and this is at least the proportion we should be aiming at. In addition, our own contributor to this website, Brian Bannatyne-Scott, a distinguished opera singer with an international reputation, tells me that it was only illness followed by Covid that prevented him from making his long-awaited return to Scottish Opera in 2019 and 2020. The fact that he has not appeared with Scottish Opera since 1985, and has never appeared with either the RSNO in the Usher Hall or the SCO in the Queen’s Hall, is however a sad reflection on our lack of appreciation for most of our own talent in Scotland.

The emergence of Nicola Benedetti as a world class violinist has helped to put Scotland on the musical map, and her Benedetti Foundation is exactly the sort of thing that will encourage youngsters to want to learn to be musicians. For a young woman (still only 33), she is a powerhouse of inspiration to us all.

The world-wide fame of the composer, James MacMillan, has also brought attention to Scotland, although his well-known antipathy to sectarianism has perhaps shone an uncomfortable light on things Scottish.

Let’s hope that these tentative shoots blossom into a substantial plant, and that we can find more outlets for all our Scottish artists here in Scotland, as well as abroad.