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From: "Peter_McCrae" <>
Subject: McGILLIVRAY: Katherine McGillivray--d;1/8/2006
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 17:47:57 +0100

The Scotsman Online 25/8/2006


Katherine McGillivray
Viola player and teacher
Born: 21 May, 1970, in Paisley.
Died: 1 August, 2006, in London, aged 36.


WITH the sad early death of Katherine McGillivray, the world of musical
scholarship has lost a most important and enthusiastic champion. She was not
only a remarkable viola player and a sensitive and gifted player of viola
d'amore obbligati but a most diligent and caring teacher. McGillivray had a
musical ear that made her an inspired member of baroque ensembles such as
the English Consort, the Bach Players and Concerto Caledonia: her
contribution to music-making was joyous, committed and passionate. The
distinguished conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, under whom McGillivray
often played with the English Baroque Soloists, remembers her with a very
special pleasure. "It was not simply that Kathy was an outstanding musician.
She had the rarest of qualities, that of being able to influence a
performance from the inside with her unobtrusive tact and consummate
musicianship, all part of being such a lovely person."

Katherine McGillivray was brought up in Glasgow and demonstrated a rare
musical talent from an early age. At first she learnt and played with a
particular ability the violin but she had a lesson on the viola with the
distinguished teacher at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music (RSAMD) Jimmy
Durrant. He was also well known in musical circles throughout Scotland as,
for many years, he was conductor of the National Youth String Orchestra of
Scotland. Mr Durrant was so impressed with McGillivray's obvious talent that
he immediately auditioned her with colleagues at the RSAMD and offered her a
place at the academy.

McGillivray admitted she was torn as she had already started a teachers'
training course at Jordanhill College. However, she studied the baroque
viola and under Mr Durrant and Catherine Mackintosh's teaching, McGillivray
proved a most remarkably gifted pupil. While still at the RSAMD, McGillivray
played with the European Union Baroque Orchestra and then continued her
studies as a postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Her sensitive and enthusiastic playing was noted by many early music
societies and she was soon playing with such established orchestras as
Ensemble Sonnerie, the Amsterdam Baroque Ensemble and Eliot Gardiner's
Cantata Pilgrimage. McGillivray was also a member, with her cellist sister
Alison, of the Bach Players, which toured widely.

McGillivray was a founding member, with Alison, of Concerto Caledonia, which
gave concerts throughout Scotland and has become a regular and popular
visitor at many venues. Their trip to Nenthorn School, in Kelso, is still
remembered there with much affection, as was the weekend devoted to the St
John Passion in Perth in March. Andrew Logan, Concerto Caledonia's agent,
was present at that Perth concert. "The performance was wonderfully
conducted by Mark Padmore, but Kathy was in the middle of the ensemble
influencing all the musical nuances. Her musical sensitivity was
extraordinary - she was such a lovely and witty person," he said.

Since its inception in the early Nineties, McGillivray and her three
colleagues (Alison, David McGuinness and David Greenberg) in Concerto
Caledonia had done much to further the interest in early music by
established and less well-known composers in Scotland. As The Scotsman wrote
in March last year , the quartet has done so with "as much a sense of danger
as of style".

Apart from her playing, McGillivray gained a deserved reputation for her
teaching in London at the Royal Academy and was (since 2000) Professor of
Early Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, doing much to
improve the playing of the student baroque orchestra. She had recently been
awarded a scholarship at the Guildhall to study the nyckelharpa, which
necessitated a year's sabbatical study in Sweden. McGillivray had recently
returned from Sweden and was making plans for the ensuing academic year
before preparing for engagements with the European Brandenburg Ensemble and
the English Consort. Sadly, a brain tumour was diagnosed that prevented the
fulfilment of these plans.

McGillivray had an infectious enthusiasm for music and in particular baroque
music. She played and taught with gusto and was a much admired and respected
colleague both on and off the platform. She was generous of spirit, time and
friendship; many fellow musicians remember McGillivray at post-concert
parties teaching some rather confused soloists - still in full formal
attire - the intricacies of the Dashing White Sergeant. She also much
enjoyed a good malt and had a detailed knowledge of the various
distilleries.

As Sir John Eliot remarked: "I can still hear her beauty of tone and
phrasing in the Sixth Brandenburg Concerto (with Jane Rogers as soloist) in
Bath Abbey in 2000. She will be hugely missed by all her friends and
colleagues."

Katherine McGillivray is survived by her father and sister.

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