James MacMillan

James MacMillan is announced as The Hallé's Featured Composer for 2026/27. The season opens with the world premiere of MacMillan's ‘Symphony No.6’, and his 'Seven Last Words from the Cross’ forms the heart of a new Easter Festival. ➡ Find out more here: bit.ly/3REeR6J

James MacMillan is a member of the jury for the 2026 Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition. Sky Arts give viewers a glimpse into the most prestigious conducting competition in the world with a new documentary titled ‘Making a Maestro’. Find out more: donatellaflickcompetition.com/making-a-maest…

Continuing his work as Professor of Theology, Imagination and the Arts @univofstandrews, James MacMillan contributes to a new video about the Master MLitt course in Sacred Music. Find out more about the course in this new video: bit.ly/4mzgDSe

Did you hear James MacMillan’s ‘Angels Unawares’ on @BBCRadio3 on Sunday with @TheSixteen & @BrittenSinfonia? Recorded live at the Sistine Chapel, this work is filled with angelic encounters & expressions of fear & hope. 📻Listen here bbc.in/4sPi2X8 📷Harry Richards

On Sunday 22 March, @TheSixteen and @BrittenSinfonia performed the World Premiere of James MacMillan’s new choral work ‘Angels Unawares’ at The Sistine Chapel. 📺 Watch the concert on Catholic Sat here: bit.ly/47hJjbW 📷 Harry Richards

James MacMillan’s new work, ‘Angels Unawares’, will be premiered on Sunday 22 March in the Sistine Chapel by Harry Christophers and @TheSixteen, who will make music history by giving the first-ever world premiere of a concert work in this venue.

On Friday 6 March, James MacMillan received a Doctorate Honoris Causa at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music and delivered a lecture in which he reflected on silence, faith, and the role of the composer in the modern age. ➡️Read more: bit.ly/4lfkgf8

🎶 HM King Charles III has approved the award of the 2025 King’s Gold Medal for Music to James MacMillan. ➡ Read more here: bit.ly/4aXQ9nN

Thank you to everyone who joined James MacMillan, @BBCSO & Chorus, with soloists Rhian Lois & Roderick Williams at the Barbican last Friday for his ‘Christmas Oratorio’. 📻 You can tune in to the concert on Christmas Day on @BBCRadio3 at 8.05pm - bbc.in/48T0Po0

🎶A snippet from yesterday’s rehearsal🎶 Ahead of tonight's performance of James MacMillan conducting his ‘Christmas Oratorio’ at the Barbican, London with soloists Rhian Lois and Roderick Williams, @BBCSO & Chorus 🎟️ Find out more and book tickets: bbc.in/3XVHTic

James MacMillan’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’ finds both strangeness and splendour in the most familiar of sacred stories. 🎼 Follow along with this @Boosey score video of Movement VI, Chorus 2 from the ‘Christmas Oratorio’: bit.ly/4rSudlI

✨James MacMillan discusses the creation of his ‘Christmas Oratorio’ 🎶 MacMillan conducts the work with @BBCSO, Rhian Lois and Roderick Williams on Friday 19 December @BarbicanCentre, London. 🎟️Tickets available here: bbc.in/3XVHTic

In a new series for @BBCRadio3, James MacMillan explores how fellow composers like Haydn, Beethoven, and Hildegard von Bingen depict the first day of creation in music. 📻 Tune into the first episode this Saturday (29 November) at 1pm: bbc.in/44h4tFJ

"I saw in my grandfather and my father certain characteristics that I saw in Jock Stein." James MacMillan on @BBCRadio4 - Great Lives, looking at the life of Jock Stein, manager of Celtic FC when they won the 1967 European Cup. 📻 Listen on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/4geiIzv

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Wishing @jamesmacm a Happy Birthday! To celebrate, why not take a look at a snapshot from a recent performance of MacMillan's "Concerto for Orchestra" by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra! Available now on @BBCiPlayer Find out more here: bbc.in/4kF9Nb2

🎶 James MacMillan conducts @BBCSingers this evening in a programme surveying a number of his choral compositions, juxtaposed with a selection of early works @NNFest. ➡ Find out more here: bbc.co.uk/events/e8m5q9

James MacMillan pays tribute to his friend Christian Elliott, a key player in @TheCumnockTryst's community and education programmes, in The Times. "We will miss Christian sorely but will remember him always.” Read here: bit.ly/4miY0kR

In his latest diary for @spectator, James MacMillan reflects on his recent trip to the US, from conducting the @minnorch and collaboration with VocalEssence in Minneapolis, to his time at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. ➡ Read more here: bit.ly/3GVgJTh

"He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another." #Conclave2025. At the 12 noon Mass on Sunday we give the WORLD PREMIÈRE of Sir James MacMillan's setting of Saint John Henry Newman's text: "He has not created me for naught". #GoodShepherdSunday #Vocations