A Conversation with Sir James MacMillan

This Cardinal Perspectives episode features a conversation with Sir James MacMillan, a pre-eminent Scottish composer, and Dennis Strach, director of Diocesan Engagement at The Catholic University of America.

Sir James has become a leading voice in classical music, renowned for his deeply expressive compositions that intertwine his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, and a profound sense of social conscience. His works, such as “The Confession of Isobel Gowdie” and the widely performed “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel,” have garnered international acclaim and have been featured by major orchestras worldwide, including the London Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Sir James also composed a piece for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II–“Who Shall Separate Us?”–and one for Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic visit to Great Britain in 2010–“Tota pulchra es”–a Marian motet associated with Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic visit to Great Britain. That same year, the piece was separately commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for their National Convention and premiered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

Beyond his compositions, Sir James is a passionate advocate for sacred music and its role in nurturing full, conscious, and active participation in the Eucharist. This led to his involvement in the Welcoming Children in Worship project, led by Dr. Jem Sullivan, associate professor. The project, funded by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc., is a children's liturgical formation initiative at The Catholic University of America, the national university of the Bishops of the United States of America. This project coincides with the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year (2022–25) national grassroots initiative of the Catholic bishops of the United States to rekindle a living relationship with Jesus Christ in worshipping communities through renewed participation in the Eucharist at the diocesan, parish, and individual levels.

In this episode, Sir James MacMillan sits down with Dennis Strach to talk about the intersection of faith and art in sacred music, his journey as a composer, and much more.
 

Dennis Strach

My name is Dennis Strach, and I serve as the University's Director of Diocesan Engagement.
Today I'm joined by Sir James MacMillan, internationally-renowned Scottish composer and conductor of classical and sacred music, and founder of the The Cumnock Tryst Music Festival.

Those within the music world will no doubt be familiar with his extensive work, but even for our listeners who may not be as familiar with orchestral or choral music, one might highlight Sir James' piece “Who Shall Separate Us,” which he composed for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II; or perhaps his Mass setting, written for Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic visit to Great Britain in 2010; or even “Tota pulchra es,” which was commissioned for the American Guild of Organists National Convention and premiered here on our campus at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

He's an incredibly talented, thoughtful, and humble man, and we're blessed to have him with us at Catholic University for this conversation.

Sir James, welcome back to campus.

Sir James MacMillan

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here again.

Dennis Strach

You're a very busy man. I know you just came from Minnesota for a two-week engagement with the Minnesota Orchestra and VocalEssence, a world-famous choral organization. And now, this week you are here on campus for a number of events with our community as part of the pastoral initiative Welcoming Children in Worship, which is made possible by a Lilly Foundation grant.

Your time with us involves a number of events with our students and our faculty—Dr. Peter Kadeli, who heads our sacred music program, and Dr. Jem Sullivan, associate professor of catechetics, who leads the Welcoming Children in Worship initiative.

Let's just start with your time here in D.C. I know you're in the middle of your week, but maybe give a sense of what you've done thus far and what's around the corner. I know you have a big day today and a big night this evening.

Sir James MacMillan

Yes. Well, most of the work so far has been a series of interviews with Father Phillip Ganir, who's a Jesuit, an alumnus of the University, and now teaches at Boston College in Boston.

Our conversations have revolved around the importance of music. Not just the importance of music to society, but the importance of music to the Church and the possibility of music being utilized as a way of bringing young children to the faith and involving them more in liturgy and in considerations of the beautiful, not just in the world of the Church, but in life in general.

There have also been rehearsals already for the event tonight. Dr. Kadeli is interviewing me in Heritage Hall, and the chamber choir here at the University is singing some of my music at that.

Dennis Strach

I know President Kilpatrick will be with us tonight at that event, and the University community is very much looking forward to it. I want to start from the beginning of your story. We were talking about this a little before we hit record, that is, the roots of your love for music and for composing. I also want to give our audience a sense of these two worlds that come together in a complex way. They intersect in your vocation—the worlds of music and faith.

You grew up in Scotland near Glasgow, and you learned, like many of us in music school, by way of a plastic recorder. Your grandfather was a big influence in your exploration of music. He gave you a cornet, and you explored that a little, along with piano and singing.

You have known you wanted to be a composer from a young age and, at nine years old, you wrote a small piece for your mom on the piano. At this early age, what was it about composing that really kept you focused and drew you in? What is it about composing that really spoke to you?

Sir James MacMillan

It's a very good question, because I really did realize quite early on that I wanted to be a composer, although I didn't know what that really meant or involved. So how did I know about composing? How did I know about composers?

It was through very early discussions with the two people you've mentioned: my grandfather and my mother, who talked to me about some of the great composers of the past. They loved music in different ways. My grandfather, like many men in Scotland, was a coal miner, but he played an instrument called the euphonium in colliery bands.

The British brass band tradition was very strong in industrial areas and still is, so he introduced me to instruments, bought one for me, and took me to my first band practices. He showed me music that he would sing as a member of his local church choir. He was fascinated by music because men like that, who spent 50+ years, under ground hacking away at coal, sought out beauty any way they could. And for him, it was through music.

He had introduced my mother to music. She wasn't as interested in it as I was, but she did play the piano as a teenager. Therefore, the house was full of her old piano music, and I started becoming quite interested in it. "Who is Beethoven?" might have been one of the first questions I asked at that age. I remember being surrounded by all this music and asking these questions, which introduced me to the concept of people composing music.

The instinct was innate in me. Within days of playing, I realized I wanted to write or create my own music in some way. I didn't know what that meant then, but I've been trying to work it all out ever since.

Dennis Strach

So, in your experience now as a composer, looking back, you’ve shared that the music, for you, is something that you feel the need to respond to and pursue.

In other words, it's an experience from outside of you. And this outside inspiration—whether it’s the Holy Spirit or whatever one might call it—is interacting with you individually: your experiences, your thoughts, your feelings, your struggles, and your heart.

When did you first begin to understand this vocation of composing music as something that actually involves this “other being,” if you will—something divine, something outside of you?

Sir James MacMillan

Well, I think it might have been a gradual thing, and I'm certainly not the first or only artist who talks about external motivation, external inspiration. The concept that inspiration being a spiritual thing is deep in our culture.

I very quickly began looking into what some of the great composers of the past had to say about it. If you read Beethoven's writings on his relationship with the Divine, you realize that he was a man—probably the most famous composer that has ever been—who had a deep relationship with God and saw his role as a composer as a mission. That’s actually a word he used—“mission”—and certainly as his vocation.

The interesting thing about Beethoven is that subsequently, a lot of musicologists have tried to disregard the religious dimension of his life. They do that with a lot of composers and artists. Either they don’t want to talk about it or they don’t notice it. But, if you probe deeply enough and actually read what Beethoven said about his relationship with God and with the divine, you realize that Beethoven—one of the great composers—saw an undeniable link between God and music. He regarded himself as the vessel through which God spoke. And if Beethoven thinks along those terms, then maybe the rest of us might benefit from thinking similarly.

Although society has changed and sometimes the arts don’t  have the same connection with spirituality as they did in Beethoven’s time, it’s impossible to divorce art from a sense of the spiritual. People who love music say that it is the most spiritual of the arts. And a lot of those people are not religiously inclined at all, but they’re recognizing a truth about the nature of the art form.

Dennis Strach

I would like to ask you more about that. It seems like your music is a perfect venue for reaching even those audiences who may not be religious at all. You're often in venues—secular venues—where your audience, without noticing, is enjoying a sacred text or a piece of Gregorian chant that has been set.

And as you mentioned, you're still approached by people who might consider themselves to be agnostic, atheist—whatever you might say—and talk about your music as a spiritual experience or something that opens them up to something beyond themselves.

Were you aware of that power,that gift, early on in your career? Did you recognize it in reading the stories of those early composers? Or did you become aware of it more through audience feedback as your career developed?

Sir James MacMillan

All of those things. It’s been a gradual evolution, not just of thinking and reading, but of learning. Learning what it means to be a composer, learning about music’s place in the world and in society, and the necessity for listeners to sacrifice something of themselves to the power of music.

I think all of that is embedded in the initial burst of joy that a young musician feels when discovering music for the first time. But you're never fully aware of the depth of that experience until the message is fleshed out through life, through experience, and through continued learning.

Dennis Strach

Dr. Sullivan and many in the catechetical world, your work is evangelical in nature. You create sacred space for people from different political and religious backgrounds and create a sense of communion from the experience of listening to it.

In catechetical spaces, we often talk about the difference between knowing Jesus and truly encountering or experiencing Him. In your work, you seem to invite listeners to experience music on their own terms, which requires a kind of letting go, a spirit of openness and a willingness to be changed by what they hear.

Even in secular venues or with secular audiences, your music presents an opportunity to evangelize the culture by way of the pieces you compose.

When you speak about your own experience as a composer, you often describe a hunger or thirst that needs to be satisfied. There’s an urgency with which a musical idea or a particular text needs to be shared.

How do you see the University’s role in helping students tap into those qualities? Are they things that can be taught or formed? There are many parallels between preaching, evangelization, and the urgency of the message that needs to be shared. This urgency is also present in how you talk about composing.

When it comes to the University's role, is this something that’s innate? Is it something that can be taught or formed within a student?

Sir James MacMillan

It’s an interesting question. The relationship between educators, whether in universities, colleges, or conservatories, and imaginative students who want to be composers raises the question: Can composition be taught? And, more specifically, how do you teach composition? I don’t know.

I’ve been taught composition, apparently, and I certainly regard some of my teachers as great mentors. But I’m not sure what exactly they did that made me want to continue. However, they did something, and now I’m being asked to do the same with mentoring younger composers. Again, I don’t know how it’s done other than sharing experiences of the older artist with the younger one and encouraging any God-given talent the younger artist may have.

There’s a limitation to what an educator can do for a composer. A composer is either born a composer or not. In a sense, you’re given something, regardless of background or education, but that gift is intrinsic. The role of the educator, the parent, the church, and the community must encourage that God-given gift to develop, grow, and thrive.

A teacher or university, in this sense, is there to encourage something that may or may not be there and to do their best to nurture it and bring it forth.

Dennis Strach

The University has recently announced a new master's in sacred music program, which will begin in Fall 2025. Students in such a program, especially at Catholic University, will have unique opportunities. One of those is to engage with the rich tradition of liturgical music, particularly Gregorian chant. For our broader audience, chant is specifically Church music, something unique to the Church. Some may argue that chant isn’t very relevant to their daily lives or the daily lives of musicians. Could you share why a foundational knowledge of chant is so important, not just for modern sacred musicians, but for musicians in any field?

Sir James MacMillan

Chant holds an interesting place in society and the church today. I’ve noticed in recent years that the secular world has rediscovered chant, not for religious reasons, but often for aesthetic ones. About 20 years ago, I observed that many younger people were buying recordings of chant, and it was starting to appear on radio stations, not just classical ones. There was this desire for relaxation, for reflection, that chant enables.

Apparently—not that I know anything about club culture—but my children’s generation tells me that when they visited clubs, which were full of very noisy, deafening music, some would retreat to a quieter room where Gregorian chant would be played. So, the secular world has rediscovered chant at the same time that the Catholic Church was abandoning it. There’s a lesson there for the Church. What is it about chant that appeals to the secular world? What makes it beautiful to them, while some in the Church wanted to abandon it?

This is a lesson we must learn: to rediscover chant. The intention of the Church in the Second Vatican Council was never to get rid of chant. In fact, the Council emphasized that chant is a primal musical force in the Church’s liturgy and should be renewed. The idea of singing chant in vernacular languages is now available to us, and it can be done very well. Gregorian chant can be sung in English, French, Spanish—this is a natural outcome of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Benedict spoke about chant and polyphony as important archetypes for considering even new music in the Church, and I agree with him. There's something about chant that sounds specifically Catholic. As you said, many would say that Gregorian chant is the sound of Catholicism, and in popular films, past and present, if you hear chant, you know something related to the Church will follow, whether positive or negative.

Chant is part of the DNA of Catholic life and should be encouraged, one way or another, allowing it to fit with post-Vatican II liturgy. There’s not just one way to do liturgical music, there are many different ways, of course—but chant should be one of those primary considerations, alongside everything else.

Dennis Strach

From a theoretical perspective, these chants are the foundation of our concept of music theory in any realm, right? Not just the sacred.

Sir James MacMillan

Exactly. Gregorian chant is the music of the first millennium. It's the classical music of the first millennium. It's the music of the church during the first thousand years, and then became the basis of the music of the next millennium because it shaped the development of polyphony and shaped the DNA of a lot of the music of the Renaissance composers, which in turn influenced subsequent generations. And it should be alive now in the third millennium.

Dennis Strach

I want to take a look back at that lens of evangelization once more. You've traveled all over the world. You've met and engaged with hundreds of musicians. I'm curious how you see the church speaking to our current situation and engaging the culture and our modern situation.

Sir James MacMillan

I suppose in some ways people regard me as being unusual as far as I relate to modern culture. I'm writing music for the modern world, and yet I'm very much not just a person of spiritual dimension, but a person of faith that is actually a practicing Catholic. People regard that as odd. At one time it was not odd, it was the expected thing. And, in the past, some of the composers I've mentioned would divide the time between writing for the secular world and writing for the church. In a strange way, I still do that, although most of my work is for the secular world. But I do love the Church, and sometimes I write music for the liturgy as well, and I regard that as a very important part of it.

So, bringing that narrative to the wider world of contemporary music or contemporary classical music, the world of composers and performers of modern music, it's an interesting conversation, an interesting series of conversations to be had. But the first thing I tell the skeptics amongst my fellow music lovers is that I'm not alone. There are loads of composers still alive, and some of the great composers of the 20th century were profoundly religious men and women. I point to the likes of Stravinsky, who fell in love with the Catholicism of the West when he came from Russia to Europe. He said the mass, he said the Psalms, he said little prayers. The other great polar opposite in early modernism, Schoenberg, converted and practiced Judaism when he left Germany, and his later music is infused with Jewish theology and spirit.

The great American iconoclast John Cage chose to study with Schoenberg. He was a major musical thinker in the 20th century. He saw in Schoenberg a fellow mystic. He found his own path to the sacred through the ideas and, indeed, the religions of the Far East. So it's not just Christianity that is apparent and vibrant in modern music and culture. There's lots of other religions too, Judaism and so on. There's a whole range of composers who are profoundly religious, and specifically Christian, who came after Shostakovich, behind the Iron Curtain, the post-Shostakovich modernists. Arvo Pärt is still alive in Estonia and I've been in his company recently. He had to leave Estonia because he took a stance against the Soviet State-enforced atheism by writing religious music and challenging the dogmas of an anti-religious society and politics.

The whole Eastern experience is full of people like that. Olivier Messiaen, the French composer and teacher of Boulez and Stockhausen, was famously Catholic and one of the most important figures in music composition of the 20th century. His Catholicism was an additional element to his innate talent. It was the reason he is so important as a composer, and the likes of Olivier Messiaen and others give people like me permission to be not only openly religious, but also openly Catholic in our artistic lives.

Dennis Strach

I want to go back to something we spoke to earlier and relate our conversation to something many folks in our audience will be familiar with. And that's “Who Shall Separate Us,” the piece that you wrote for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. That's a great example of the ways that secular and sacred can come together in a very unique moment. I want to ask you about that, because that’s an incredible gift.

You received this call to come to a meeting at Westminster Abbey. You're commissioned to write this piece for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, who is not yet deceased at this point. It's 2011. And they invite you to consider this text from Romans, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ," a pericope that's really dear to her heart. When you get this call, what is going through your mind? I mean, this is a very unique and perhaps a weighty experience. I'm curious what was going through your mind and if that changes your process at all.

Sir James MacMillan

Well, when I got the call, I wasn't told what it was about. I was just asked to come to a meeting at Westminster Abbey. And it was the music staff of the Abbey who presented the opportunity: Would I write an anthem for the Queen's funeral? As you say, this was 2011, 11 years before she died. I was told, if I accepted, it would be this text, which is one of her favorite texts from Scripture: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ." But I could not tell anyone about it, it had to be kept a secret. There would be trouble if it got out that these things were being planned.

But the thing is, there's a whole range of things being planned. All the obituary programs were recorded years before she died. If anybody saw it on the television, even those BBC angles were rehearsed over a long period of time. It was like a work of art, perfecting the different angles and so on. So everything was prepared for years in advance, including this.

I wrote the piece quickly, delivered it, the publishers got the music to the Abbey, and the music went straight into their drawer for the next 11 years, until it was produced again when she died. I didn't actually attend the funeral. I was invited to, but my wife had broken her foot at the time, so I stayed behind with her.

I watched it on television, along with four billion viewers who watched the live broadcast of the Queen's funeral. I had a real “pinch me” moment when I was told that number, because I don’t think a composer has ever had a live audience of four billion for a new piece of music, and it won't happen again.

Dennis Strach

The chance to interview someone who has such unique experiences is quite special. I wanted to ask you about something that’s really moved me in the way you speak about your vocation, which is the art of surrender. There's a close relationship between your work and the surrender that is required in spiritual life.

For any singer, tension leads to your demise. Manipulating or over-listening to yourself is a pitfall in the craft. You have to experience it, feel it, and then let it go. You write with pencil and paper, not necessarily at the piano or with composition software. I’ve heard you joke that the most technologically advanced tool you use is the electric pencil sharpener. Even in that process, you can't just hit backspace. Once it’s on the page, you commit to it.

So once that piece is written, at some point you have to turn it into your publisher or give it to the Queen. How do you know when it's time to let it go, and where do you find the courage to say, "I've done the best I can," and put the pencil down?

Sir James MacMillan

It's something you get better at through practice over the years. When I was younger, I was more reticent about making final decisions, but now I make them more readily. I would revise things a lot after hearing them, because you hear your mistakes—but you learn through them. As you get older, you make fewer mistakes. You develop confidence and a sense of having lived the life of music much more. By the time you're in your sixties, you’re more at ease with putting the double bar at the end of a piece and handing it over, compared to when you were in your twenties.

Dennis Strach

I suppose it’s the same with practicing our faith throughout life—we get better at those surrenders to God as well.

I know you’re off to Benedictine College later this week to accept the prize for excellence in Theology and the Arts. We’re grateful for your time this week and for being with us today. If you’d like to learn more about Welcoming Children in Worship, visit welcomingchildren.catholic.edu.

Sir James, we appreciate you being with us, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your visit on campus.

Sir James MacMillan

Thank you very much.