A new lease of life

John Reid, the School’s Interim Chief Executive, has for several years been closely involved with the plans to move St Mary’s Music School to the old Royal High School building.

“After almost eight years, I am delighted to report that the Royal High School Preservation Trust has finalised and signed a 125-year lease to the site at Calton Hill. The process has been arduous and, I have to confess, in some dark moments, we despaired of the proposal succeeding. However, succeed it did, and work has now commenced on site. Coincidental maybe, but it does feel rather fitting that it should happen in the School’s 50th anniversary year.

We can now look forward with great enthusiasm to a watershed in the School’s development, as we become a key element of the Calton Hill project. The refurbished building will become an iconic cultural landmark in Edinburgh once again, with classrooms and boarding facilities newly constructed and incorporating all modern amenities, and surrounded by elegant and relaxing gardens.

The new site will provide an opportunity to enhance the already first-class, specialist music education offered by St Mary’s Music School, providing 37 dedicated and specialist practice rooms, a state-of-the-art recording studio and a concert hall and recital rooms, designed by a world-leading acoustician.

These facilities will be a beacon, attracting ambitious students and the finest musicians and teachers to Edinburgh and there will be a wide range of musical and cultural activities taking place on campus. In short, the new facilities will enable the School to realise its ambition to become a world-renowned training establishment and to take its place at the heart of Edinburgh’s and Scotland’s rich cultural life.”

A musical memory…

“Having planned for so long to conserve and protect this building for the city and the nation, it is hugely exciting for the Trust to take possession of it at last and to begin moving ahead with restoration plans this year. This is a significant milestone for the building and the delivery of a shared vision for a new world-class centre for music education and public performance.”

“It was a great privilege to grow up in such an enriching environment surrounded by incredibly kind and smart friends, many of whom are now colleagues of mine within the music industry. My fondest memories involve improvising during the monthly jazz days led by Richard Ingham, being a member of John Kenny’s brass ensemble, chatting and crafting in art classes with Ms Martin, and having extra accompaniment sessions with John Cameron instead of piano lessons. St Mary’s Music School really shone with its chamber music tuition, and it’s not a coincidence that I have gone on to prioritise chamber music within my own career.”

Two minutes with two musicians

Two pupils (our oldest and our newest!) take two minutes to talk about the instrument they play, what they love most about being a musician, their favourite music and composers, and their musical highlights (so far!).

John Doig (the School’s first instrumentalist in 1972), from Killearn, Scotland | Violin

After playing to Yehudi Menuhin when I was 13 years old, I was enrolled at St Mary’s Music School as the first instrumental pupil, in 1972. I began lessons at the age of five and I love the breadth of tone of the instrument and the singing quality of the upper register. Although retired now, I still listen to a lot of music, mostly classical. But I spent some of my youth playing in orchestras accompanying amateur dramatic clubs, so have a soft spot for musicals too – from Gilbert and Sullivan to Fiddler on the Roof! One memorable highlight of my career was in 1994, when I was the leader of the orchestra playing when the great Spanish soprano, Montserrat Caballe, appeared in a sell-out concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. I was chatting to her in the green room beforehand and she surprised me by saying that at lunch that day, she had tasted haggis for the first time… she said it was delicious. Needless to say, her performance that evening was stupendous – haggis fuelled perhaps!

Sophie (the School’s newest pupil in 2023), from Edinburgh, Scotland | Violin

I play violin and piano. I love the violin because it makes such a lovely sound and it’s so calming. When I play a piece on it, it makes me feel that it happened in another world. I listen to lots of different composers, like Vivaldi, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, but my favourite composer of all time – to listen to and to play – is Chopin. One of my musical highlights is working with the Edinburgh University Orchestra, also playing Meditation by Jules Massenet and getting a private video from Nicola Benedetti.