For over a decade, Live Music Now Scotland has worked with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland 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 year’s winner, Connor Bristow, composed the wonderful piece, ‘Dancing in Faerie’, for ASN audiences, specially written for, and performed by, No Borders String Trio, and inspired by Scottish and wider Celtic folklore surrounding Faeries.

The trio said: “We have been really excited and honoured to have Connor’s piece written for us, the whole experience has been very enjoyable! It opened doors for us and by talking with Connor we might have new ideas coming up in the future!”

Connor Bristow said, “A massive thank you to everyone involved for this wonderful opportunity, it has been brilliant. I couldn’t be happier with the piece so thank you No Borders for bringing it to life so expertly and for injecting your own life into the piece.”

Read more about our work: https://livemusicnow.scot/what-we-do/

No Borders Trio is Frances Patterson (violin), Suzanne Godet (viola) and Joanna Stark (cello).