SIR James MacMillan will be back in Cumnock this month — for his son’s wedding.
Aidan and his bride, Kleida, will have their Nuptial Mass in St John’s Church on August 18 with the reception in Dumfries House.
As expected, Sir James has used his worldwide musical connections to ensure that the day is a memorable one.
He said: “To be honest, the call back to the ancestral homelands was more to do with having their wedding reception at the astonishingly impressive Dumfries House, on the edge of the town, a kind of wedding-Mecca recently.
“It is one of Britain’s most beautiful stately homes, owned by the Bute family until 2007. It combines the stunning neo-classical architecture of Robert Adam with wonderful furniture of Thomas Chippendale, made specially for the house.
“The third Marquess of Bute converted to Catholicism in 1868 and built a church in Cumnock in the early 1880s, St John the Evangelist, to a design by William Burges, for the local growing Catholic community.
“My grandparents were married there, as were my parents in 1958. I was baptised there in 1959, made my first communion in 1965 and played its organ as a teenager.”
The young couple have kept Sir James busy these last few months, writing quite a bit of music for their wedding.
“Aidan is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde, so I invited my old pal Alan Tavener (the music director of Cappella Nova) to bring his singers to the nuptial mass,” Sir James added.
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