Born in 1989 in East Ayrshire, Jay Capperauld is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Scottish music. He is currently Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has written several new works for the SCO, as well as composing for ensembles within Scotland, the UK and internationally. He has also worked extensively with young composers and in community music making settings, and his music has been broadcast on BBC television and radio, and on Danish and German radio.

 

Education

Jay was just a teenager when he wrote his first piece of music, inspired by a school workshop visit from three SCO musicians. Early influences ranged from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring to Black Sabbath, from Ravel to Birtwistle. He went on to graduate with a BMus (Hons) in Performance in saxophone from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2011, gaining a PGDip in Performance in 2012, and a MMus in Composition with distinction in 2014, for which he studied with Dr Gordon McPherson.

 

Collaborations

Jay has worked with a huge range of ensembles, soloists and conductors on performances of his works as well as new commissions. His music has been performed by almost every professional classical ensemble in Scotland, including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hebrides Ensemble and Red Note Ensemble, among many others. Beyond Scotland, he has also collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic, Orchestra of Opera North, Wallace Collection, Workers Union Ensemble and Psappha. His music has been conducted by numerous respected figures including Maxim Emelyanychev, Andrew Manze, Sir James MacMillan, Martyn Brabbins, Thomas Dausgaard, Ilan Volkov, Alpesh Chauhan, Jessica Cottis and Pierre-André Valade.

He has composed a flute concerto, Our Gilded Veins, for Katherine Bryan, principal flautist of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and wrote Netherlandish Proverbs for Alison Teale, the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s principal cor anglais player. He has also worked closely with saxophonist Lewis Banks, composing for film/music project Afterlife in collaboration with filmmaker Paul Wright, and creating the new saxophone concerto Rewired which premiered in summer 2025 with the SCO conducted by Jonathan Bloxham.

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Jay has recently begun a major collaboration with South Uist-born poet Niall Campbell across a number of musical projects, including the choral works The Night Watch and The Winter’s Brightening, and the oratorio The Language of Eden written for Baritone soloist Roderick Williams with the SCO orchestra & chorus. They are currently working together on the song cycle The Gemstone Arias for Live Music Now Scotland, and a new work Sun Path for the Glasgow School of Art Choir.

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Commissions

Among numerous commissions from orchestras, ensembles, soloists and festivals across the UK, Jay was commissioned by King Charles III for the Honours of Scotland celebrations in St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, in July 2023. The new piece for string orchestra – Schiehallion! – brings together three traditional Scottish tunes selected by His Majesty to reflect his personal connections with Scotland, and was broadcast on BBC1 and BBC Radio 3.

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Jay also received a BBC commission for his Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn), premiered by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard at the BBC Proms in 2020, which was selected by BBC Radio 3 to represent the UK at the International Rostrum of Composers in 2021. Jay’s earlier work Fèin-Aithne was commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2016.

He was commissioned by St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh to compose Theory of the Earth, for percussion, piano and string quartet, inspired by Alexander McCall Smith’s poetry about Arthur’s Seat, and premiered by young musicians from St Mary’s in the summer of 2021.

His piano concerto Endlings, reflecting on climate change and species loss, was commissioned by pianist James Willshire and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, and premiered by those same performers in the spring of 2018. The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland also commissioned and premiered his Galvanic Dances, a new accordion concerto written for Ryan Corbett, in August 2025 at perfomances in Perth, Liverpool, Saffron Walden and Berlin. Galvanic Dances went on to win the European Composition Award 2025 presented by the Young Euro Classic festival at the Konzerthaus in Berlin.

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Jay received his first professional commission from Sir James MacMillan who commissioned his music as the inaugural festival commission of The Cumnock Tryst Festival in 2014 and subsequently commissioned Jay’s An Ignorant Prelude to Cosmic Consciousness for cellist Laura van der Heijden, BBC Young Musician of the Year 2012, which was premiered at The Cumnock Tryst Festival in 2015.

 

SCO Associate Composer

In 2022, Jay was appointed Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a role he currently holds. As well as composing a large number of new works for the SCO, Jay also works closely with the Orchestra’s Creative Learning team in educational and community projects.

The SCO and its Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev premiered his Scottish reel-inspired Whisky Mouth as part of a USA tour in 2022, and his showpiece The Origin of Colour launched the Orchestra’s 50th anniversary season across no fewer than ten concerts throughout Scotland in 2023, as well as being the focus of an Immerse education project for secondary school students.

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His theatrical work for children and families, The Great Grumpy Gaboon, created in collaboration with author Corrina Campbell and directed by Chris Jarvis, was premiered in February 2024, and given repeat performances in subsequent seasons. Further works commissioned and premiered by the SCO include The Night Watch and The Winter's Brightening for the SCO Chorus; the orchestral work Bruckner’s Skull on fellow composer Anton Bruckner’s obsessions with life and death which was subsequently performed by SCO & Maxim Emelyanychev at the BBC Proms in 2025 at the Royal Albert Hall; and Carmina Gadelica for wind dectet, inspired by hymns, prayers and incantations from the Western Isles.

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Performances of three recent works by Jay – The Origin of Colour, Bruckner’s Skull and The Night Watch – will be made available online in the SCO’s 2025-6 digital season. Future commissions for the SCO include the saxophone concerto Rewired, Christmas choral work The Winter’s Brightening, orchestrations of Scarlatti keyboard sonatas in Stylus Scarlatti, and the oratorio The Language of Eden on the origins of language itself, written for baritone Roderick Williams, the SCO and the SCO Chorus.

 

Education and community work

Jay has worked extensively with young composers in their own learning and development. He was involved in establishing the West of Scotland Schools Orchestra Trust’s inaugural composition course in 2019, and acts as a mentor to young composers as part of the RSNO’s Notes from Scotland scheme. He was also lead mentor in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s inaugural Soundbox programme for emerging music creators, and worked with young musicians from St Mary’s Music School on the premiere of his chamber work Theory of the Earth in 2021.

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As the SCO’s Associate Composer, Jay also works closely with the Orchestra’s Creative Learning team on educational and community projects. He is lead practitioner in the SCO’s Seen and Heard project bringing together visual art and music in a five-year residency in the Craigmillar district of Edinburgh, and has co-presented the Orchestra’s Immerse project alongside visual artist and musician Kirsty Matheson, exploring art, music, composition and creativity with senior secondary music students.

 

Publishing

Jay self-publishes his works, and scores are available via his website: for details of individual works, please get in touch with Jay through the Contact page.

 

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Written by David Kettle. A short biography is available on request, please contact Jay directly via the Contact page.

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Jay says of his work:

“As a composer I have an interest in creating emotive, meaningful and engaging narratives through music that combines intellectually rigorous processes with accessible presentation. I always seek out collaborative partnerships with performers/commissioners who share my core value in celebrating undiluted, unapologetic and challenging new music while curating performance contexts that facilitate a welcoming musical experience for audiences. My music is often driven by a concept and always aims to tell a story, even in an abstract way, which has led me to write about a wide range of topics such as séances, natural marvels, the afterlife, the last known individuals of certain species, broken objects, religious iconography, Scottish identity/tradition, mental health and dollhouses depicting true-crime scenes. This means that my musical output alters depending on the concept, which allows me a freedom in my writing to explore my creativity without the limits of style or expectation. As a common theme, my work is primarily influenced by the symbolic concept of the “Vanitas” (an image of a skull that can be found mostly in Renaissance art that acts as a reminder that death is an ever-present motive force), which informs my artistic output and way of life. The Vanitas also informs the concept of transience in my music which is reflected in a wide variety of musical contexts, so that the idea of Death becomes a gateway for the brevity of Life which, for me, highlights an existential desire to explore and cherish it through music”.