Donald's chair is kindly supported by Professor Sue Lightman.
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Donald Gillan joined the SCO in 2007. Before that he enjoyed a busy freelance career playing with chamber groups and orchestras including the Scottish, Paragon and Hebrides Ensembles, Northern Sinfonia, BBC SSO and Scottish Opera.

Donald studied with Eileen Croxford and William Pleeth as a scholarship student at the Royal College of Music where he won all the major cello prizes. After leaving the RCM, he won the Muriel Taylor Cello Prize which enabled him to continue post-graduate study with Emma Ferrand and Ralph Kirschbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Donald’s varied career has also included writing music and playing with theatre companies, recording solo cello for film soundtracks, and sessions with numerous pop/folk groups and singers. Tours abroad have taken him as far as Japan and Montreal and he has performed many of the major cello concertos with various orchestras.

Donald plays on an English cello by Thomas Dodd c.1815.