Among the many pleasures of life in Dumfries and Galloway is its thriving music scene, the product of a rich and varied community of singers, players and composers. It’s a place that fosters collaboration and, with that, experimentation across styles and musical genres. In recent times it has also produced creative partnerships with poets and writers, film makers, photographers and sound artists.
Very cool stuff, in other words.
Which is why I contacted one of the active people in this space, Stuart Macpherson, and asked him to take part in my series of interviews with inspiring and creative people living and working in rural south west Scotland.
Stuart came to the region as a child and has pursued a diverse musical career from his base in Nithsdale.
Here in his interview, he talks about a musical and collaborative journey of fascinating twists and turns, with much achieved to date – and an exciting future ahead!
My thanks go to Stuart for taking time for the interview. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Can you tell me where you were born, brought up and went to school? I think you moved to Dumfries and Galloway at some point in your childhood?
Yes, I was born in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness in September 1983. We lived in the Crown area of the town and I went to the local primary school until I was seven, when I moved with my parents and my two brothers to Thornhill, in Dumfries and Galloway.
Moving was a bit of a change, going from Inverness where we were very much in the town, to Thornhill … which I guess is technically a town (barely), but very much a small rural one. The countryside and outdoors were right there in a way that they weren’t before. It was brilliant. I mean I really love Inverness and definitely have a strong affinity to it, but I’m so grateful that we moved when we did and for the childhood in the countryside. Most of my friends lived on farms or in/around small villages, so there was a lot of time spent outside … on bikes, walking, playing football, building dens in the woods, swimming in rivers, camping … all pretty wholesome really. In terms of family life it was pretty standard, both my parents worked (dad was an architect, mum an occupational therapist) and I was the middle child of three … and possibly the one that gave my parents the hardest time! But it was a loving and supportive family set-up, with the usual teenage friction … we all generally like seeing each other now that we’re grown up. Today I live just a few doors down from my folks. Most of our school holidays involved spending time up at my auntie’s small-holding on the west coast (near Arisaig) – another place that I have a very strong affinity with.
When did you begin to develop an interest in music and what form did that take? Which instruments and types of music were you drawn to?
I’ve always loved music and would say that I was around it a lot growing up. Not live music particularly, but my parents played a lot on the Hi Fi and in the car. I’ve got very strong memories of long road trips to my auntie’s listening to a mixture of Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham, JJ Cale, Neil Young and JS Bach and lots in between – bit of an eclectic mix! When I started learning the guitar in primary school and particularly when I was at high school, all that had a pretty major influence on the things I ended up listening to … Hendrix, Zappa, Grateful Dead, The Band. I was listening out for more of the guitar driven stuff and was always more drawn towards instrumental music. In high school I started to listen to more jazz … Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, Herbie Hancock.
Was music an important part of your education and did you go on to study it after school?
Yes, it was. In primary school I had an enthusiastic guitar teacher who really encouraged me. This definitely helped me going into high school and gave me a drive to improve my playing. I studied music throughout my time at high school and was regularly playing with other musicians (school ceilidh band, blues trios, and accompanying singers). I didn’t go off to study music directly after school – I knew I wanted to be doing music in some way but was just not sure if I wanted to go to study it. I actually went to art school instead, but all my time in Glasgow, I was playing in bands and active in the music scene up there. I actually left art school because the band I was playing in at the time was doing well and I wanted to be more focussed on it. Well it didn’t work out in the end, and after quite a few years of being a bit lost with where I wanted to be, I ended up going back to study music as a mature student. In a way it worked out pretty well for me doing it that way round, as I had a real thirst to learn when I went back, I knew I really wanted to be there whereas if I had gone straight from school, I don’t think I would have got as much out of it, I didn’t have that focus.
That’s really interesting, can you say more about how your approach to music changed during your years at University?
So, I went to study Applied Music at Strathclyde University, on a course which unfortunately they no longer offer. The students were made up of a right mix of musicians – jazzers, folkies, classical players and rockers. I think one of the great things about the course was that you could really hone in on the areas that were of interest, mine being composition and jazz studies. I could quite easily have got into more of the music production too. Because I went back as a mature student I was really clear about my goals and what I wanted to get out of studying, so it was a pretty focussed (and intense) period as both our kids were still very wee (toddler and a baby). It definitely gave me a confidence in my ability, and that showed me that there may be a way of carving out a viable existence as a professional musician.
You have talked about your guitar playing and guitar driven music, but when did you take up double bass and where did that start to lead you?
I started playing the bass guitar at high school. My friend (another guitarist) and I had decided to play a blues at the school Easter concert and we had another pal who played drums – I said I’d play bass guitar for this one and it kind of stuck. I also really enjoyed playing the bass – I was drawn to the sound and the bass lines. It wasn’t until I had left school that I started playing the double bass, I had been performing with a system alongside other live musicians, and actually got an electric double bass. Having no frets meant I could pitch alongside the records and remain in tune with them as they mixed different tracks. I’ve always loved the sound of the double bass, so naturally wanted to get better at it. My double bass tutor at University was particularly good, he’s the principal bassist with Scottish Ballet but also plays in Mr McFalls Chamber as well as being well versed with jazz. Like me, he’d started as a bass guitarist and evolved from the horizontal to the upright bass, so I think he could really understand where I was coming from. He wasn’t one of those tutors that pussy-footed around: if I was out of tune or my bowing was crap – he’d tell me all about it – quite direct. I respond really well to that though, so we got on well.
You have an interest in ‘found sounds’ and recordings of sounds around you. How did all that begin and where does it fit into your work?
I guess ever since I started recording my own musical ideas I’ve enjoyed the process of recording/editing/manipulating sounds. I’ve often sampled sounds and incorporated them into pieces, but previously it was more in a studio setting as opposed to field recording. I’ve learned a great deal about that over the last few years (particularly from Pete Smith) and have enjoyed pulling that aspect into my work. It requires a different level of patience to working in the studio. I like how it makes you sit still and listen … often for pretty long periods of time. But you get these magical moments or you stumble across something that sparks your interest. I guess from a composer’s point of view it gives me more colours and textures to use.
Tom Pow’s prose piece with music, ‘Nine Nests’, was in a way commissioned by me for a one day festival I held in Dalswinton some years back. Can you tell me how you got involved in performing with Tom and where it has got to subsequently?
Well, I don’t think I actually performed “Nine Nests” itself . There was a performance of it right back in the early days of The Village and The Road where we performed both pieces back to back – but I think it was just Wendy Stewart and Ruth Morris performing the Nine Nests part with Tom. But Nine Nests was very much a precursor to The Village and The Road. Wendy has worked a lot with Tom Pow over the years and he had come to her after Nine Nests with another piece of writing he had been working on that could maybe work with live music. It was a piece of writing based on dying villages – this would become the Village and the Road. Wendy had suggested that it could work really well with a new group that we had just formed. Wendy had recorded an album “Folds in the Field” on which Ruth Morris (nyckalharp), Gavin Marwick (fiddle) and myself were invited to play. We really enjoyed playing music with each other and wanted to do more, so The Galloway Agreement was born.
We secured a bit of funding to develop the piece because initially it was a pretty stagnant, with Tom reading his words while we underscored it with live music. Yet it always felt like it could be more. It really took shape though, when we worked alongside Director Matthew Zajak to turn the work into a piece of theatre. The Village and the Road has grown legs and arms since then. Particularly in the last year or so, with selection to be part of the Made in Scotland Showcase with performances at the Fringe and most recently performances in Japan.
I was incredibly impressed by your multi-media production of Solway to Svalbard, which had its premiere in October 2022. It combined your own compositions, spoken word, film, photography and immersive sound to track the journeys of migratory geese, together with the stories, communities and legends that appear along the flyway. Can you say how it came into being, how it was done, the challenges and opportunities – all the things involved in producing something of such ambition, richness and emotion. Sorry for the long question – you can see I am a fan!
Well, funnily enough it all started off with a commissioning opportunity through the Stove Network for one of their members to create a piece of work responding to a brief about migrating birds. It was to coincide with the opening of Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation that was coming to Dumfries. At the time there was another Stove project exploring Dumfries’ ties to Norway and I thought I’d explore the avian link between Norway and Scotland. I knew the barnacle geese that came to the Solway each year had something to do with Norway but didn’t realise that was just their spring staging point and they in fact came from Svalbard, in the far north. Pretty impressive … there’s also loads of really cool mythology surrounding the geese, which is fascinating.
Anyway, the resulting piece that I created was “Flight” – a migratory soundscape incorporating field recordings and free triggered samples. Pretty early on in the process of making that piece I started to think about where the geese stop on their journey and the idea of exploring those environments. I really liked the idea of incorporating visuals and some proper field recordings. Also, I guess I had grown a bit of a fondness for the geese through working on “Flight” and felt that I wasn’t quite finished with them yet!
It’s important to me that I make work that has a relevance to where I am and with what is around me. I also wanted to work on this project with other artists that have ties to the region, Emma Dove and Pete Smith were obvious choices. I love both their work, they’re really good at what they do and in fact both had been involved in some level with “Flight” too.
Initially the folklore surrounding the barnacle geese was the bit that got me hooked … the idea that folk actually thought they hatched from barnacles on bits of driftwood … totally brilliant! But I guess very quickly there was an admiration that grew for them … it is amazing what they do … the distances they travel each year. They evoke a lot and represent and mean all sorts of different things to different folk … all the while they’re just being cool wee geese flying between here and the High Arctic, trying to eat the best grass when it grows and raise a family … I like that.
The actual process of pulling it all together was a bit of a labour of love, I think because the project was running and in development for such a long period of time (the initial Stove commission for Flight was back in Autumn 2016, the first discussions with Pete and Emma about collaborating were in 2017, and the first residency at Caerlaverock was in March 2018). It’s gave us plenty of time to really drill down into what the project could be. It started off with birds, but in a way ended up very much about people. One of the things I’ve loved about this project is the connections that have been made. I’m regularly in touch with my Norwegian pals on the islands updating me on the barnies and other interesting happenings.
In terms of challenges there have certainly been a few – obviously funding is an issue for a work like this – Svalbard is far away and expensive, so thankfully we managed to secure funding from various different organisations for various elements of the project (Creative Scotland, PRS Foundation, Help Musicians, DGU, DG Arts Festival, NTS, The Stove Network, DMC). It also involves a huge amount of people to make a project like this. The core creative team of myself, Pete and Emma worked extensively with musicians, lighting, sound, production and particularly Davey Anderson (Director). Even getting everybody together at the same time is challenging. Thankfully Covid happened after we had managed to get to Svalbard (that would have been an absolute disaster!). One of the lasting challenges with this work though is the logistics. Unfortunately it’s not the easiest show to put on, due to the high technical demands and the number of performers. Part of the beauty of the piece is the scale and I’m rather loath to downsize it – but I would dearly love for it to have a life beyond the premiere so I am looking into possibilities for it going forward.
You’ve made your life in Dumfries and Galloway. What challenges and opportunities does that bring for a full-time musician?
Obviously living rurally and away from the city means there aren’t as many gigs on your doorstep – I used to be doing a jazz gig most weeks when we lived in Glasgow, but there isn’t as much of a scene here and it isn’t worth travelling up there, as the economics don’t stack up! (I remember hearing a joke about a typical jazz gig where you get a musician playing a £5000 pound instrument, travelling in a £500 car to do a £50 gig). But at the same there is a good traditional music scene down here, and that is something I’ve embraced more, although I don’t get out to sessions as much as I’d like as I’ve been a bit preoccupied recently with a pretty major house renovation.
I think the pace of life here suits me, I definitely do better where it isn’t as busy – it makes writing a lot easier and perhaps comes from a more grounded place. My writing is so influenced by what is around me and the environment that I am in. I think on the opportunity side of things there are more interesting projects appearing down here now, particularly if you’re open to working with other disciplines. I‘ve really enjoyed working with artists that have a totally different skill set (dancers/painters/film-makers/actors). It can be really refreshing to see a piece of work through a different lens, instead of just as a musician. I think more and more musicians regardless of where they stay have to be adaptable – there’s only a small number of virtuoso players that make a living out of performing alone, but for most of us the reality is that you need to have a few pans on the go at the same time.
And finally – with all this in your back catalogue, where do you go next?
Well, part of the Solway to Svalbard journey was for me realising quite how important that outdoor element is for me in my work – I think it brings a balance to my practice. Much as I love playing music, writing and rehearsing with others, most of it involves being cooped up indoors. So being able to get out and right in amongst the stuff you’re writing about makes such a difference – and is very refreshing.
I think after Solway to Svalbard I’m keen to explore a bit closer to home. A lot of the themes that were explored in it are still very relevant and no doubt will continue to manifest in my work – environment, belonging, place, migration and of course, birds. I definitely feel that my work is drawing me more into collaborative work and multi-art form realms.
I’ve been in the midst of a house renovation for the last wee bit so I’m really feeling ready to get back into a project and to start writing a new body of work.
Photo credit: Kirsten McEwan and with thanks to The Stove, for part of the section on Solway to Svalbard.
If you wish to contact Stuart, he can be reached at:
info@stuartmacpherson.net
https://www.facebook.com/stuart.macpherson.music/
https://www.stuartmacpherson.net/
Stuart’s interview is part of a whole series of conversations with inspiring and creative people living and working in rural Dumfries and Galloway, south west Scotland. For a list of them all, please look here: https://davidgrahamclark.net/interviews/
Quotidian 