Published by: New Music Scotland

How to better collaborate to increase commissioning for Scottish composers and performances of new music throughout Scotland.

It was great to catch up with so many familiar faces, and meet a few new ones, at the first Peer to Peer of 2026. Even over Zoom there was plenty of energy in the conversation. Here's a rundown of the main points that came up.

Update:

Facilitated by Sarah Gee (CEO/Musical Director, Spitalfields Music), the session brought together a small group of composers, promoters, festival directors, and music organisations to discuss how to grow collaboration and increase the reach of new Scottish music.

What's going well:

The group noted real progress over the past 20 years — more new music promoters and audiences, growing concert attendance in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and greater acceptance of contemporary music in venues that once stuck strictly to the classics.

Key challenges identified

• Venues — affordable, accessible spaces are hard to find, and three Glasgow venues have closed in the past year alone. Venue hire costs can exceed artist fees.
• Touring and second performances — new works often get a single premiere and then disappear. Everyone agreed this is a missed opportunity, but touring requires capacity, funding, and an embedded strategy from the start.
• Genre-blurring work — pieces that cross jazz, contemporary, world music and other categories are difficult to market and hard to place with promoters who need a clear genre label.
• Funding and Scottish identity — current funding criteria can skew towards music that "sounds Scottish," which disadvantages composers working in broader contemporary styles. Existing touring funds largely exclude music in favour of theatre and dance.

Ideas and possible actions

• Build stronger links with the Touring Network and Chamber Music Scotland to get new works into more venues
• Create or curate a shared resource/register of available new works (with video clips and materials) to help promoters discover and programme pieces for second and subsequent performances
• New Music Scotland to take a more active interface role - connecting busy national organisations with what's happening in the new music scene
• Explore whether a "showcase Scotland" style model could be developed for new music, bringing international promoters to hear Scottish composers
• Address the talent pipeline - emerging composer schemes can trap people in a cycle for years without a clear path forward

To wrap up, we asked everyone for the one thing they'd want for the sector. Three answers came back: legitimacy (media coverage, broadcasting, public recognition), connectedness (genuine integration with venues and touring networks), and platform parity with the other art forms.