Life
Rob MacKillop is a Scottish lutenist, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist born in 1959 in Dundee, Scotland. Self-taught on guitar as a teenager, he later studied classical guitar at Napier College, Edinburgh, becoming a lecturer there, and subsequently spent four years at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, graduating in 1993 and immediately becoming a lecturer in guitar and lute. In 2001 he received a Churchill Fellowship to research medieval Scottish music, and in 2011 he co-founded the Scottish Lute and Early Guitar Society with Bill Samson. Alongside lute, he performs on theorbo, vihuela, historical banjo, ukulele, and classical guitar, and has recorded numerous chart-topping CDs of early Scottish repertoire.
Impact
MacKillop has been central to reviving and popularizing the largely neglected 17th-century Scottish lute manuscripts (Straloch, Skene, Rowallan), bringing this repertoire to modern audiences through recordings, editions, and teaching. Known as ‘the godfather of modern no-nail playing,’ he has broadened access to early plucked-instrument technique through more than twenty-five instructional editions for Mel Bay and extensive online teaching. His genre-spanning work across lute, vihuela, and historical banjo has helped keep Scotland’s early-music tradition visible within the wider international early-music scene.
Repertoire
I Love My Love in Secret by Anonymous (Balcarres Manuscript)
I Love My Love In Secret – Balcarres Manuscript – Rob MacKillop baroque lute
Le Tombeau de Mézangeau by Ennemond Gaultier
Tombeau de Mesangeau by Ennemond Gautier – Rob MacKillop
A Port by Anonymous (Straloch Manuscript)
A Port – Scottish Lute Tune – Rob MacKillop