Country’s best known flautist had a passion for the island
George MacIlwham: May 15, 1926 – June 23, 2016
George MacIlwham, who died last week at the age of 90, was perhaps Scotland’s best known flautist and an all-round musician, performer and composer who delighted audiences for more than 70 years. He was also a musician who considered Arran to be his second home and was equally at ease playing at an Arran village hall as in the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Piper, flautist and player of the piccolo, George in later years was one of four performers who set up the Summer Serenade at Corrie Church. Along with singer Jean Bowden, pianist and organist David Inglis, and raconteur (and much else besides) John Forgie, this began as a one-off concert in Corrie Hall around 1990. So successful was it that it became a summer fixture, two nights every July, and it attracted enthusiastic and devoted audiences until only a few years ago.
They brought in other musicians too, and most recently, at what was to be their final concert, two of them now being octogenarians and knowing they could not continue forever, introduced a number of young Arran players. George would play the flute, but also the pipes, and the finale tended to be a moving and choreographed piece where he began outside the church with the audience hearing the distant sounds of Highland Cathedral approaching until he entered the church in full Highland regalia to conclude the concert from the altar. These wonderful concerts not only provided summer entertainment in Corrie but raised money which went towards church funds and other Arran charities.
Born in Glasgow in 1926, the only boy in a family of four children, George attended Hutcheson’s Grammar and studied flute at the Royal Scottish Academy. He began to learn the flute, and also the pipes, as a boy and gained the Hutcheson’s annual music prize.
At the age of 21 he joined the Scottish National Orchestra and began a musical career which found him playing with famous names such as James Galway, Benjamin Britten and the recently deceased Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Indeed, when Sir Peter’s An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise was chosen to be played at the Last Night of the Proms in 1992, it was George who played it and his appearance in kilt was the first time a piper had ever played in the Royal Albert Hall.
In 1954, he was appointed principal flute and piccolo player in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he played in concerts all over the UK but perhaps most frequently on Arran while on holiday and, while his children were young, often playing in duet with his son Stewart who also became a flautist.
He was a frequent judge at piping competitions, and he made recordings and he arranged music. In 1964, he wrote his Highland Suite for flute or recorder with piano. He also wrote songs including one named Corrie, inspired by hearing a curlew on the Corrie shore one morning and, a sign of his versatility, he even got involved in making a television arts programme from the top of Goatfell entitled Three Men and a Goat.
While this writer did not know him well, and mostly just as a frequent member of his audience, I recall one occasion when he agreed to play the pipes for my daughter, who was giving a display of Highland dancing sometime around 1990. Meeting him off the ferry that day, he came to our house for dinner and we recall him as delightful and charming company. And of course a very distinguished accompanist for an amateur young dancer.
In the early 1950s, he was playing flute for the summer season with Max Jaffa at the Scarborough Grand Hotel and it was there that he met Muriel, whom he married in 1955. With the BBC SSO being based in Glasgow they lived in Bearsden and had two sons, Stewart and Cameron. Having holidayed in Whiting Bay as a youngster, the family continued coming to Arran annually, although they chose to rent houses in different parts of the island each year. Muriel was unable to decide which was her favourite but George always preferred Corrie. Cameron, an artist, died in a accident while on holiday in Thailand and is buried in Sannox cemetery. Stewart is now flautist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
A few years ago, Muriel had been diagnosed with dementia and George’s final years were devoted to looking after her. He is survived by Muriel, his son Stewart, and three grandchildren.