“Gemma McGregor’s music was brilliant, carefully condensed and melodic.”

AOC REVIEWS

Gemma McGregor is a freelance composer, performer, and curator whose work crosses the boundaries of musical genres and is often multi-disciplinary. Her compositions have been performed in Scotland, England, Wales, the Northern Isles, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada.

Winner of the Ogston Postgraduate Scholarship and the W.R. Aim Memorial Prize, Gemma has received commissions, awards and residencies from Creative Scotland, Heritage Scotland, Hinrichsen Foundation, St Magnus International Festival, Summartónar Festival, Aberdeen Sound Festival, Ambache Trust, Heriot-Watt University, the Red House, CoMA, Illuminate, Multitude of Voyces, Strathclyde University Choir, Orkney Camerata, Orkney Arts Society, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, and Nordic Viola.

Gemma's compositions feature a strong narrative, often exploring perception and consciousness. During postgraduate studies at the University of Aberdeen, Gemma had two operas performed - the first commissioned by the Sound Festival in 2015, and the second by St Magnus International Festival in 2017. She was awarded a residency at the Red House, Aldeburgh, in August 2019, to work on her third opera. Multitude of Voyces commissioned the choral work, Love Was His Meaning, and it was published in Sacred Music by Women Composers (Upper Voices Anthems Vol. 2) in 2021.

Gemma has been part of many performances and collaborations both as a flautist and as a composer. She is curator and director of The Experimental Music Project who perform interdisciplinary works at the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney - many of these have the Orkney landscape and new energy research projects as their subject. She composed a sound track for Beside the Ocean of Time, a twelve-minute film that was shown at the Live Ocean Energy Conference, Orkney in 2023.

Gemma has received many commissions and performances of her chamber music works by the UK groups: Illuminate, Modern Chants and Nordic Viola. A documentary film about her work with Nordic Viola, Sagas and Seascapes, was screened alongside a live performance of music at three performances in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2022. The Edinburgh Quartet performed four of Gemma’s compositions at a concert in Kirkwall in November 2022.

She collaborated with Shetlandic poet, Christine De Luca, on Oceans Shifting Tides for string quartet and narrator. It was commissioned by the WayWord Festival and performed in Aberdeen in 2023. Gemma is currently working on a commission for American organist, James D. Hicks, who will perform the new work at the St Magnus International Festival in 2024.