WHAT SCOTLAND'S NEW CLASSICAL MUSIC STAR SAYS.. I love Eminem..I hate

Sunday Mirror, Jun 27, 2004 by SARAH ROBERTSON

THE trendy new face of classical music in Scotland yesterday revealed her secret inspiration - foul-mouthed rap king Eminem.

Dishy Anna Meredith, 26, new composer in residence at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, said: "I love Eminem's raw, aggressive style. He's simply fantastic."

And in a remark bound to shake up the normally staid world of classical music, she added: "I prefer Eminem to Mozart. I just can't stand music that's up its own arse."

When she's not at the piano writing serious scores, Anna revealed she's "hanging out" with her mates at pubs and clubs and listening to the relentless thud, thud, thud of rap.

Anna, the youngest composer in residence in the orchestra's 80- year history - and the first-ever woman - said: "I'm just like any normal young woman of my generation. I love rap and I love rock and I like to enjoy myself with my friends over a few beers,

"I did not come to composing through the normal channels. I played in the clarinet in the school orchestra and loved performing.

"But I was no great genius and I wanted to create sounds as well as play them. I'm not interested in making a piece that sounds like Bach or Mozart.

"I'm quite unusual in that I have gone straight into composing with my own ideas. I like aggressive industrial-sounding music."

Anna, of South Queensferry, Edinburgh, is the latest up and coming female talent in Scotland, following in the footsteps of Nicola Benedetti - the violin prodigy from Ayshire who won BBC Young Musician of the Year.

Anna refused to give up normal teenage life on her way to the top. She said: "It is weird because I have got good marks but I have managed to always do it as a normal person. I don't fit the image of a composer sat with their quill and ink scribbling off sheets of music. I'm just a normal 26-year-old doing all the things other people my age do." Anna, who is single at the moment, says her favourite acts apart from Eminem are Queen and the Pet Shop Boys.

She got her job after a home-recorded CD of her work was heard by Hugh Macdonald, the orchestra's director, and Roger Wright, boss of BBC Radio 3. The full-time position in Glasgow involves writing pieces of contemporary orchestral music.

The orchestra has commissioned her to write three major works, the first of which will be premiered next year when they move to their new home at Glasgow City Hall.

Anna's dad is a lecturer at Napier University and her mum restores paintings.

At school she played the clarinet and piano then went to Napier to study music. From there she did an honours degree at York University before gaining a masters with distinction at the Royal College of Music in London.

Now she can charge a five-figure sum for her pieces.