I’ll never take culture for granted again

‘Has this been the happiest year of my life?’ I found myself asking recently. It has certainly been topped with the arrival of a third granddaughter last month. (My first, little Sara Maria, died a few years ago.) The birth of Rosie Elisabeth has taken our joy to cosmic levels, but 2023 has been a succession of delights, mainly connected to the concerts I’ve been able to conduct around the globe, from St Louis to Tallinn. After the evils of lockdown, many of us worried that musical life would never return. But it has. I will never, ever take cultural life for granted again.

One highlight this year was the culmination of a huge project at my festival in East Ayrshire, the Cumnock Tryst. ‘Celebration of the Coalfields’ allowed us to work with ten local groups who created their own music and songs, which were subsequently orchestrated for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.