Sir James MacMillan on Creativity and Sacred Music: From the Ashes of Modernism to Cultural Renewal

Two video interviews and an article about his philosophy of sacred music, recently published in the National Catholic Register.

I am delighted to share with you two hours of interviews with Sir James MacMillan, master composer and conductor, about how creating beautiful music can save culture from the ashes of modernism. One is by myself and the other by my wife, Margarita Mooney Clayton. Aside from being one of the greatest living composers and conductors of classical music, Sir James is a Catholic whose faith informs all his work. As you will see, he is a deep thinker who communicates clearly the nature of the creative process when one seeks to create beauty to bring Glory to God.

Further, my wife’s reflections on music and silence in the light of these interviews were published, recently in The National Catholic Register!

In June 2024, Margarita and I each sat down with MacMillan in the studios of Princeton Theological Seminary. He was leading master classes for composers of choral music in an event jointly sponsored by Peter Carter’s Catholic Sacred Music Project and the Scala Foundation, whose mission is to make authentic beauty accessible to wide audiences, a cause that MacMillan shares. Another major sponsor was the Benedict XVI Institute.

Here is my interview:

And, here is Margarita’s:

In addition to the two full-length interviews, we are delighted to share clips from each of the interviews on these topics:

• The umbilical link between music and silence

• Gregorian chant as the DNA of sacred music

• To breach with the past is destruction

• Tradition is a flowing river

• Christian artists redeem the abyss

• Analogies between music and prayer

• The umbilical link between music and silence

MacMillan’s statement that “the war against silence is a war against ourselves and against our interior life” rang true because I see many turning to thoughtless political activism to fill their interior void.

Finally, some music! Here is a beautiful performance, in the presence of the composer, of Sir James’ Give Me Justice in the chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary at the event. The conductor is Tim McDonnell, also of the Catholic Sacred Music Project.