Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and make it your career?
I have never thought of it as a career. It is something more than that. As far back as I can remember music has been the thing in my life, is and will be.
Who or what were the most important influences on your composing?
Dr. Gordon McPherson, Ravel, Morton Feldman, John Adams, Steve Reich, Sibelius, Takemitsu, Olav Anton Thommessen, Harrison Birtwistle, Bartok, Shostakovich, Talk Talk, Prefab Sprout, Bach, Admiral Fallow, A-ha, John Martyn, Ligeti, Koechlin, Satie, Nicole Lizee, Nancarrow, Mahler, Mozart, Beethoven, Webern, Yannis Kyriakides, John Cage, John Lautner, William Boyd, Steven Hall, Zoe Strachan, Primo Levi, Van Gogh, Rothko, Rembrandt, Pollock, Renee LeGrande, David Hockney, Stanley Kubrick, John Keats, Robert Burns, Norman McCaig, Wilfred Owen, Marion Colyer, Shakespeare, Star Trek, Sergei Leone, nature, travel, science and space flight.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Every piece offers its own challenges. If I were to pick one it would be the first proper piece I wrote for orchestra – Ridge A. It is all about the coldest, driest and calmest place on earth which was discovered in 2009.
I spent nine months writing it alongside the rest of my folio in the final year of my BMus and the technical leap it required from me was significant. I studied a lot of the orchestral repertoire and sat in on orchestral rehearsals at college. I realised afterwards that Takemitsu and Sibelius were important influences on the piece.
Standing in front of eighty people and answering questions about your work is quite intimidating, but it was a great experience in the end. The orchestra played it beautifully. The conductor, Christian Kluxen, was fantastic and I hope I can work with him again.
Which compositions are you most proud of?
I was very proud to be commissioned by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on their collaboration – ‘Heart of Govan’ – with CRAN Theatre to celebrate the peoples and history of Govan and their historic Govan Parish Church.
Also my piece ‘Sober Observer Sees (HD)’ to be selected by Ensemble Modern for performance in 2012.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?
My favourite venue in Glasgow is The City Halls, which sound fantastic.
Favourite pieces to listen to?
Ravel’s ‘Piano Trio in A Minor’ and ‘La Valse’, The ‘Adagietto’ from Mahler 5, Ligeti’s String Quartets, Thomessens ‘From Above’ and ‘Beyond Neon’ .
Who are your favourite musicians?
Lots! Many for different reasons. I love Glen Gould, especially his recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Nina Simone is a very powerful performer.
I have been lucky enough to have had some incredible performances of my work and I am very grateful to the hard work and dedication shown by those musicians.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
The guitarist Pavel Steidl visited the RCS twice and each concert, all solo guitar, were amazing.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Work hard, be true to yourself but admit to yourself when you know other people’s advice is valid. Always do what is best for the music, not yourself, and have fun. Only write music you love and write about what you want.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently making final edits on a 15 minute solo guitar work called ‘Treasures’. It is in three movements and is about the relationship between memory and objects, such as old photographs. It is dedicated to Anthony Winton.
I am about to start work on a new piece and there are a few projects in the pipeline.
Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?
Living on the coast of the Mediterranean and supporting myself by commissions!
Richard Greer was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland where he has recently completed a Masters in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland studying with Dr. Gordon McPherson. His works have been performed by various individuals and ensembles, including Guitarist Sean Shibe, Soprano Claire Thompson, Trumpeter Andrew Connell-Smith, MusicLab, the Viridian Quartet, The Expedition, Red Note Ensemble, Said Ensemble, the RCS Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on their ‘Heart of Govan’ Project, and Ensemble Modern.
http://composergreer.co.uk/
The Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson died in March 2015. He was one of the most important composers of our time, a composer-pianist in the grand tradition of Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninov, probably best remembered for his monumental Passcaglia on DSCH. Pianist Christopher Guild’s first volume of Stevenson’s piano music was released on the Toccata Classics label in early March 2015, though I suspect Guild did not realise at the time that his recording would become a kind of memorial for Stevenson. The CD celebrates Stevenson’s shorter works for piano with a special focus on one of his major preoccupations: his love of Scottish and Celtic culture. The album contains three suites of pieces based on Scottish folk songs or songs for children, together with the more substantial A Scottish Triptych, three pieces each written some time apart, and A Rosary of Variations on Sean O’Riada’s Irish Folk Mass (1980).
The piano is the ideal instrument for miniatures, and Christopher Guild brings warmth, intimacy and wistfulness to the pieces based on Scottish folk tunes with his assured lightness of touch, sensitive voicing, clean articulation, rhythmic vitality and a keen sense of the fleeting moods and characters of each piece, and Stevenson’s penchant for complex harmonies and unexpectedly vivid dissonances. Meanwhile, A Scottish Triptych explores more plangent piano sonorities in its opening movement, and even utilises the piano’s interior (strummed and plucked strings) to produce unexpected colours and resonances in the final movement.
Ronald Center: Instrumental and Chamber Music 
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 