John Purser is a composer and one of Scotland's most important cultural ambassadors.

John Purser was born in Glasgow of Irish parents in 1942. He was educated at Lathallan School and Fettes College, and in 1963 took diplomas in Composition, Singing and Violoncello at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where his composition teacher was Dr Frank Spedding. With the aid of a Caird Scholarship, he continued to study composition with Sir Michael Tippett and Dr Hans Gal. As a mature student he took a 1st in English Literature at the University of Glasgow (1980), followed by a PhD (1989), partly funded by the Carnegie Trust. He was the first Manager of the Scottish Music Information Centre 1985-1987 and was joint editor with James MacMillan of Stretto magazine.

He has been a freelance composer, cellist, musicologist, poet, playwright and broadcaster, as well as lecturing on classical music for many years for the University of Glasgow Extra-Mural Department (as it was then called), and has lectured and broadcast on Scottish music world-wide. He has been studying Gaelic at Sabhal Mor Ostaig (the Gaelic College on the Isle of Skye) where he has assisted in course development and, most recently, on the Gaelic Arts and on Tuigse nan Ceilteach – a course on Celtic belief systems, delivered through the medium of Gaelic.

In 2004 John was appointed as an Honorary Research Fellow at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and is one of the team of researchers for the five-year research project, Window to the West – towards a redefinition of the visual within Gaelic Scotland, funded by the AHRB.

John is an honorary life member of the Saltire Society, and was honoured with the Oliver Brown Award for 1993, and the Scottish Heritage Society Award for 1993. He lives on the Island of Skye where he is a crofter and Chairman of the local Common Grazings Committee from 2003. He was Secretary of the Elgol and Torrin Historical Society 1996-2002 and Secretary of the Strathaird Management Committee, 1995-2001. He was a Trustee of The John Muir Trust from 2001-2004 and Vice-Chairman of Strathaird Community Association from 2004 onwards.