Live Music Now Scotland regularly commissions composers based in Scotland and has led the way in creating new works for audiences and performers outwith the concert hall.

Composing with Care

LMNS devised the Composing with Care model for composers to create new works in collaboration with older people living in residential care. Through visits and performances in care homes, LMNS musicians gather stories, memories and contributions from residents that composers then use as inspiration to compose a new piece.

The model creates:

• A unique opportunity for some of the best emerging professional musicians in the UK to work with established composers and older people in care, in the creation of a brand new piece of music
• A new piece of music made through a unique collaborative process reflecting and inspired by the voices of older people, which can enter artists’ repertoire and be performed for years to come.
• Premiere and subsequent performances of the new music in care homes
• Commercially produced and distributed recordings

Watch our Videos

Watch to find out more about the projects or links to stories about the projects.

Explore our Luminate CD released on the Delphian Label in 2014 to celebrate our 30th birthday and our commissioned works. Visit delphianrecords.com.

Composing with Care Commissions

• 2013 – Luminate: From the Islands (soprano/piano) –  William Sweeney
• 2014 – A Castle Mills Suite (mezzo-soprano/piano) – John Maxwell Geddes
• 2015 – Songs from Above and Below (soprano/piano) – John McLeod
• 2017 – Mill Memories (flute/guitar) – Savourna Stevenson
• 2017 – Reel Folk (trad trio) – Ailie Robertson
• 2020 – City Sounds of Nature (voice/acc) – Karine Polwart

Kimie Composition Prize

in partnership with Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

For the past nine years, with funding from Kimie Trust, LMNS has worked with RCS to give an outstanding composition student, under-graduate or post-graduate, the opportunity of composing a piece of music for interactive performance in outreach settings such as those which form the bedrock of the work of Live Music Now Scotland.  Working closely with experienced LMNS musicians, a new work is written for the student’s chosen audience, either older people in care or children with additional support needs. The piece is workshopped with staff and fellow composers at the RCS and the finished work is then performed in the selected settings, professionally studio-recorded and formally submitted as part of the composer’s academic assessment.

This composition initiative, opening up awareness among emerging composers of writing for a diverse range of audiences, is supported by Kimie Trust.

“This initiative is about staying close to the composer’s artistic practice, while being inclusive for the audience.”Matthew Grouse, 2016 Kimie Composition Prize composer

Kimie Trust Composers

• 2020 Ollie Hawker name tbc for solo concert harp
• 2019 Gillian Walker The Music Box for wind trio
• 2018 Rylan Gleave Six Weather Pictures for tenor saxophone and piano, with optional BSL performer
• 2017 Electra Perivolaris Bruadaraiche-Dreamer for guitar and cello
• 2016 Matthew Grouse Polaroids for string trio 
• 2015 Aran Browning Cardboard Creations for wind trio
• 2014 Beki Smith Some Nonsense about Animals for soprano, trumpet and piano
• 2013 Matt Zurowski Monochromes for String Quartet

Other New Music Commissions

• 2012 – Dance Suite for Two (violin/cello) –  Eddie McGuire
• 2013 – The Bellany Suite (trad trio) – Wildings
• 2014 – String Quartet No 2 ‘The Keeper of Sheep’ – Alasdair Nicolson
• 2015 – Bi-Cycle (clarinet/piano) – Jennifer Martin
• 2019 – What’s For You…. (clarinet/piano) – Jennifer Martin