Ryan MacKenzie is a London-based composer, arranger, and musical director whose work brings together the improvisational imagination of jazz, the emotional directness of pop songwriting, the harmonic depth of classical training, and the earthiness of Scottish folk tradition.

His writing and performance credits encompass the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and English Chamber Orchestra, along with studio and live collaborations across theatre, television, and contemporary vocal music. Recent highlights include commissions for the EFG London Jazz Festival, Celtic Connections, the Edinburgh Festival, Children in Need, arranging contributions for Terry Gilliam’s 2022 production of Into the Woods, additional orchestrations for World War II: From the Frontlines on Netflix, and recurring engagements for London Fashion Week. In the studio and on stage, MacKenzie has worked with a wide range of artists including Pixie Lott, Alan Cumming, Gabrielle Aplin, Rob Brydon, Benj Pasek, Colman Domingo, Donna McKechnie, Wayne Sleep, and Christina Bianco.

Born in Aberdeen in 1995, MacKenzie grew up in Scotland’s northeast — not in a formal artistic environment, but in a culture where music is social, communal, and woven into public life. He asked for piano lessons at age seven, seemingly without prompting. Soon after, he added fiddle and became immersed in Scotland’s session culture, where repertory is learned not from notation but from listening, memory, and conversation. As a teenager he toured throughout the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada with the Strathspey Fiddlers, gaining early experience with ensemble cohesion, travel, and the discipline of performing night after night. He later became a two-time finalist in the Glenfiddich Fiddle Championships — an invitation-only competition limited to six players globally each year — a rare honour for a musician still in his teens.

MacKenzie studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from 2013 to 2017. While he entered through the folk and traditional music programme, the breadth of the conservatoire’s musical world reshaped his trajectory. He moved into classical piano, but his curiosity led him far beyond the piano department: jazz arranging classes, big band rehearsals, musical theatre productions, and accompaniment for singers in multiple genres. During this period he wrote an arrangement for a singer and, almost on a whim, asked if the Royal Scottish National Orchestra might perform it. They did. Hearing his writing played by a full orchestra — long before he had formal training as an arranger — was a moment of revelation. Orchestral colour, texture, and scale became a core part of his creative life.

Three days after graduating, MacKenzie moved to London. Theatre opportunities arrived rapidly: he sight-read the notoriously demanding Mary Poppins keyboard book, which led to international tours of Les Misérables and West Side Story, then the UK tour and Savoy Theatre run of Guys and Dolls, as well as working on the 30th anniversary revision of Starlight Express with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Arlene Phillips. A Proms performance at Glamis Castle connected him to prominent vocalists who, impressed by his versatility and musical sensitivity, began bringing him into studio and concert projects. Much of his early career in London developed through trust and word-of-mouth; singers appreciated that he said yes before worrying whether something was possible.

A shoulder injury during Les Misérables forced a halt to his performing life and redirected his focus permanently toward composition and arranging. He began private study with Scott Stroman at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, completed a master’s degree in composition and arranging there, and made his debut at the EFG London Jazz Festival with his Guildhall final project. He later continued his work with Vince Mendoza — a key musical influence and mentor — whose approach to colour and narrative orchestration helped sharpen MacKenzie’s own instincts for ensemble texture and shape.

Today, MacKenzie writes and arranges for orchestras, big bands, chamber ensembles, and cross-genre collaborations. Though based in London, he maintains an active relationship with Scotland’s folk community. His recent recording of “Ae Fond Kiss,” arranged for Luca Manning, reflects the synthesis of his musical identity: folk melodic clarity, jazz harmony, and orchestral scope.

MacKenzie is also the founder of Let it Snow, an annual fundraiser for Motor Neurone Disease research. The event was created for a childhood friend diagnosed with MND who set a goal of raising £100,000 and has since surpassed £270,000. What began as a small, heartfelt initiative has become a fixture in the Highlands’ winter calendar — a testament to MacKenzie’s belief that music is most meaningful when it builds community.

Now living in Surrey, he devotes most of his time to writing and studio work. His artistic life is built on an unusual trajectory: from fiddle tunes in rural pubs to symphony orchestras and major international venues. The through-line is not genre, but curiosity — a conviction that music has more colour, depth, and emotional range when categories are porous and traditions overlap.

– Morgan Enos