Revered Scottish composer and educator John Maxwell Geddes has passed away following a short illness.
The award-winning talent died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, last week.
Born in 1941, Geddes studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) under Gordon Cameron and Frank Spedding.
While there, he won the Academy’s Prize in Composition and a scholarship which enabled him to study with Niels Viggo Bentzon at the Royal Danish Conservatoire in Copenhagen.
On graduating, he went on to win numerous prestigious commissions from the likes of the BBC, Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Rostov Philharmonic.
His best known works include Voyager (1985), Alley Cat (2004) and the recent, A Castle Mills Suite (2014), which was commissioned by Live Music Now and received more than a dozen performances in the UK and overseas.
His work in the symphonic tradition was written for orchestra, ensembles and soloists, while his diverse musical tastes also led him to folk song arrangements and Renaissance transcriptions.
During his life, he won many awards, including the Goethe Institut Award 1986, PRS Composer in Education Award 1991, Lord Provost of Glasgow’s Commendation 2002, Fellow of the RSAMD 2003 and the Creative Scotland Award 2007.
The award-winning talent died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, last week.
Born in 1941, Geddes studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) under Gordon Cameron and Frank Spedding.
While there, he won the Academy’s Prize in Composition and a scholarship which enabled him to study with Niels Viggo Bentzon at the Royal Danish Conservatoire in Copenhagen.
On graduating, he went on to win numerous prestigious commissions from the likes of the BBC, Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Rostov Philharmonic.
His best known works include Voyager (1985), Alley Cat (2004) and the recent, A Castle Mills Suite (2014), which was commissioned by Live Music Now and received more than a dozen performances in the UK and overseas.
His work in the symphonic tradition was written for orchestra, ensembles and soloists, while his diverse musical tastes also led him to folk song arrangements and Renaissance transcriptions.
During his life, he won many awards, including the Goethe Institut Award 1986, PRS Composer in Education Award 1991, Lord Provost of Glasgow’s Commendation 2002, Fellow of the RSAMD 2003 and the Creative Scotland Award 2007.
