Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Forward thinking

Damian Thompson thinks Michael Finnissy’s History of Photography in Sound might also hint at a way forward for composers wondering where to go next

issue 20 June 2015

The award of a knighthood to the composer James MacMillan will have ruined last weekend for lots of unsavoury people: the Guardian arts desk, which decided he’d lost his mojo as soon as he turned his back on the left; Kirsty Wark, whose squawking is mimicked in MacMillan’s Scotch Bestiary; the SNP, which he detests; and, most of all, the Nats’ religious front organisation, the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

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