Education
Fettes College.
composer music historian playwright
Fettes College.
He is also a playwright. He initiated the reconstruction that commenced in 1991 of the Iron Age Deskford Carnyx, producing a replica that was first played in 1993 by trombonist John Kenny. Purser"s book Scotland"s Music, published in March 1992 (new edition October 2007), was a major reference work on musical history from the Bronze Age to the present.
lieutenant was followed by a thirty-programme radio series of the same title, written and presented by him, which was broadcast on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Scotland and totalled 45 hours, with recordings commissioned for the series including reconstructions of early music and works by many little-known composers.
A double Civil Defense was subsequently produced with a small selection of the music Purser"s work has contributed to a revival of interest in such composers as John Clerk of Penicuik and John Thomson.
He also wrote Parrots and Owls about John Ruskin and the O"Shea brothers.