'A Way Through' by Electra Perivolaris
OUR 40th-ANNIVERSARY COMMISSION
to be performed at our opening concert on Sunday 4 October 2026
Electra writes:
A Way Through was composed for the joint 40th anniversary celebrations of Haddington Concert Society and Classic Music Live! Falkirk. Its inspiration comes from the John Muir Way, a long- distance walking route that links Falkirk and Haddington across Scotland's central belt. Named after the pioneering naturalist, conservationist and writer John Muir (1 838-1 91 4), who was born in Dunbar, East Lothian, the route celebrates Scotland's landscapes and the connections between its communities.
During the composition of the work I visited both Falkirk and Haddington, where I was welcomed with extraordinary generosity. I am deeply grateful to Fiona Finch, Richard Dyer, Gordon Bellingham, John McMillan and the many others who shared their knowledge, enthusiasm and hospitality, introducing me to the rich history, landscapes and musical life of the two towns. From the monumental Kelpies and the Antonine Wall in Falkirk to the grandeur of St Mary's Church in Haddington, the stories of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Rough Wooing, and the surrounding East Lothian landscape of Traprain Law and the distant Bass Rock, these experiences became an important part of the work's creative journey.
Rather than depicting particular places, the music reflects the experience of travelling between them. Musical ideas emerge tentatively, gather confidence, encounter moments of conflict and reflection, and ultimately return transformed, suggesting that a journey through landscape can also become a journey of memory, renewal and shared human experience.
A Way Through was composed for the joint 40th anniversary celebrations of Haddington Concert Society and Classic Music Live! Falkirk. Its inspiration comes from the John Muir Way, a long- distance walking route that links Falkirk and Haddington across Scotland's central belt. Named after the pioneering naturalist, conservationist and writer John Muir (1 838-1 91 4), who was born in Dunbar, East Lothian, the route celebrates Scotland's landscapes and the connections between its communities.
During the composition of the work I visited both Falkirk and Haddington, where I was welcomed with extraordinary generosity. I am deeply grateful to Fiona Finch, Richard Dyer, Gordon Bellingham, John McMillan and the many others who shared their knowledge, enthusiasm and hospitality, introducing me to the rich history, landscapes and musical life of the two towns. From the monumental Kelpies and the Antonine Wall in Falkirk to the grandeur of St Mary's Church in Haddington, the stories of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Rough Wooing, and the surrounding East Lothian landscape of Traprain Law and the distant Bass Rock, these experiences became an important part of the work's creative journey.
Rather than depicting particular places, the music reflects the experience of travelling between them. Musical ideas emerge tentatively, gather confidence, encounter moments of conflict and reflection, and ultimately return transformed, suggesting that a journey through landscape can also become a journey of memory, renewal and shared human experience.
Electra meets our Bösendorfer
Described as a 'Classical Star of the Future' by BBC Introducing, Electra Perivolaris is a composer and pianist, from Scotland. Her music has been performed across the UK and internationally by ensembles including the BBC Singers, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra.
Electra’s work is rooted in the landscapes of her home on the Scottish Isle of Arran and her family’s origins on the Greek island of Chios. Engaging with the natural world as a fragile living organism, her music often explores ecological processes, memory, and myth through vivid sonic imagery. Recent commissions include works for the BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, Hebrides Ensemble, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Composers’ Hub, Aurora Orchestra, The Marian Consort, The Carice Singers, London Symphony Orchestra Discovery and the London Sinfonietta. Her work has been on album releases by labels such as Linn Records and Convivium. Her vocal music has been published by HalLeonard and Encore Publications.
Electra was the inaugural Young Classical Artists Trust Composer Fellow (2024/25) and a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer (2022/23). She was selected for the PRS Foundation Classical:NEXT 2026 Fellowship. As Composer-in-Residence at the Arran International Festival of Chamber Music and Song - a new festival in her Scottish island home - Electra shapes the festival’s artistic direction around Belonging Without Borders, fostering cross-cultural exchange and internationally connected, community-rooted music-making.
Electra’s music is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and widely profiled in the national press. Sir James MacMillan has described her as “one of the most exciting young composers emerging in Scotland today,” while critics have praised her writing as “fresh, original and questing” (Musical Opinion) and “striking and sure-handed... elusive and mercurial” (The Scotsman). She was profiled in the ‘Five Young Composers Destined for Bigger Things’ feature in The Herald in October 2025.
Electra is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (BMus Hons 2019) and the Royal Academy of Music (MMus Distinction 2021) where she received the DipRAM Award in Composition for an Outstanding Final Portfolio. She was awarded a RAM Trust Scholarship, a grant from the Scottish International Education Trust and a Vaughan Williams Bursary Award from the RVW Trust for her Masters studies. Whilst at the RCS Electra won the Patron's Fund Prize (Royal College of Music) for Composition as well as the Walter and Dinah Wolfe Composition Award and the ABRSM Macklin Bursary for Piano Performance. Electra was awarded a 2021-2022 Royal Academy of Music Fellowship working as a composer with Open Academy, the Community and Participation department.
Collaboration and community engagement lie at the heart of Electra’s compositional practice. Working with organisations including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Music at Oxford, and the Scottish Music Centre she creates participant-led projects in which new music is shaped by lived experience — from school children and people living with dementia to young people in psychiatric settings and individuals affected by homelessness through her longstanding partnership with Streetwise Opera. Her practice centres on widening access to high-quality creative music-making and empowering participants as active collaborators in the artistic process.
In 2026 Electra will complete a Doctor of Philosophy in Composition at the University of Oxford, generously supported by Magdalen College’s Leon E and Iris L Beghian Graduate Scholarship. She won the University of Oxford Henfrey Prize for Composition. Electra currently teaches Composition, Orchestration, and Techniques at the University of Oxford and is a Guest Lecturer working with Masters students at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands. As a researcher she has been selected to present her work at conferences such as the 2024 and 2025 European Platforms for Artistic Research in Music, the 2025 Royal Musical Association Annual Conference and the 2023 Arts and Humanities Research Council International Conference.
