St Mary’s Music School is a famous centre of excellence for music - and unique in Scotland - but it had a rather humble start to its existence.

It was founded in 1880 and became a fully fledged music school in 1972 in a Georgian terraced house in Edinburgh. Now, after a campaign spanning the past seven years and a £55 million philanthropic gift, St Mary’s is set to occupy arguably one of the most prominent sites in Scotland’s capital city: the old Royal High School building.

St Mary’s Music School is Scotland’s only specialist music school and one of just five similar schools in the UK.

Headteacher Kenneth Taylor says it was very fortunate to secure its current premises - Coates Hall in Edinburgh’s West End - more than 20 years ago, but there will be huge advantages to the purpose-built accommodation for the school envisioned in the Royal High School Preservation Trust (RHSPT) bid.

Staff and the school’s students - who practise music for up to six hours a day - will be able to design their classrooms and practice rooms from scratch, instead of trying to bend existing layouts to their purpose; the school’s current English classroom, for instance, was once a living room and Taylor’s office is actually a converted garage.

But the main advantage of the move, he says, will be having spaces on site that are large enough for pupils to rehearse and also perform in, something that is currently lacking.

These new facilities, Taylor believes, will also enable the school to become more prominent - not just in terms of its physical location, but also because of the impact that it has on “the everyday lives of Scottish people”, thanks to the spaces it will have access to and the partnership working they should make possible.

Currently, students have to travel to perform, which means time out from their education. Activities such as the free Sunday academy that the school offers all advanced instrumental students with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra have, before the pandemic, had to be delivered in another Edinburgh school, St Thomas of Aquin’s High School, because St Mary’s did not have the space to accommodate all those taking part.

In the future, however, events like this - and the masterclasses that the school runs, which are also open to all and have in the past involved artists like the Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti and the concert pianist Joanna MacGregor - will take place on the same site as the school.

The new building - which sits on Regent Road in Edinburgh, at the foot of Calton Hill, and was designed by the architect Thomas Hamilton in the 1820s - has struggled to find a purpose since the Royal High relocated to more modern premises in 1968. It was considered by the Scottish Office as a home for the planned Scottish Assembly, with the school’s great hall converted to a debating chamber prior to the 1979 devolution referendum.

Then it was mooted as a potential home for the Scottish Parliament before it was decided that there should be a brand-new parliamentary building, and more recently it seemed likely that it would be turned into a luxury hotel.

However, the plan for a hotel on the site was finally rejected by the Scottish government last year and, on 7 October, City of Edinburgh Council’s finance committee agreed to grant a long-term lease on the building to the RHSPT, with St Mary’s Music School sitting “at the heart” of the RHSPT proposals.

The RHSPT vision is for the music centre to be “a place where people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds and experiences can come together and flourish through music”.

The public functions of the campus will be contained in the central Thomas Hamilton building - three public performance spaces are envisaged, including the refurbished Assembly Hall. There are also plans for a café, gallery and visitor centre spaces.

The new school will sit to the east of the main building in purpose-built facilities. It is expected to have capacity for 120 students - around double the number the school currently has on its roll, and there will be boarding facilities for around 65.

Crucially, though, while the school will be separate from the campus’ public spaces, and will be able to be sealed off from them, it will also have access to these areas.

As an independent school, St Mary’s is often seen as elitist, says Taylor, but he insists that the only thing elitist about the school is that the students who attend it have to have some musical talent - and the ability to work at that talent and develop it.

“Access to the specialist music education we provide is very affordable due to the Scottish government’s grant-aided places scheme, which is dependent on each family’s income,” he says. “If you are wealthy, you make a significant contribution but if you are of more modest means, you have most, if not all, of your fees paid.”

The new era will, of course, not get underway immediately - Taylor expects it will be up to five years before staff and students move in, but he describes the prospect as “incredibly exciting”.

The pandemic has had a huge impact on education at all ages and stages, but arguably music has been one of the hardest-hit disciplines - think of the long period when music instructors could not visit schools, as well as the bans on singing and the playing of woodwind and brass instruments amid fears that simply practising and performing music would increase the spread of the virus. Pupils were also barred from coming together to play in orchestras, bands and choirs.

St Mary’s - which was founded to educate the choristers of the Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral and is currently educating 14 choristers - was forced to come up with ingenious ways to allow its students to continue to hone their talents, from delivering lessons outside, to connecting neighbouring classrooms so that pupils and instructors could communicate via a live video link, which got rid of the time lag and poor sound quality that often makes teaching music online so difficult.

This school year things are, by and large, back to normal, says Taylor. Distancing and enhanced cleaning regimes remain, but students are able to come together and perform, which is crucial, he says.

The school roll has been hit; normally it would be sitting at around 80 students but recruitment has not been straightforward, with auditions having to take place online. Taylor also believes people are still risk-averse and therefore less willing to make a change to the school their child attends.

There has been a benefit to this, as the smaller number of students at the moment (Taylor is confident the number will grow) means the spaces they have currently are sufficient to meet distancing requirements.

This year, the Scottish government scrapped instrumental tuition fees and Taylor believes this will eventually benefit St Mary’s.

“We are fortunate in some ways in that we sit and wait for pupils to come to us, but if they don’t have access to music lessons, the pool of pupils who are able to develop their talent shrinks. This is a really welcome development from government and we are looking forward to seeing the fruits of that.”

In other words, the past couple of years have been tough going, but there’s everything to play for.

Emma Seith is a reporter for Tes Scotland

This article originally appeared in the 12 November 2021 issue under the headline “The music school set for a landmark performance”