RGU News Article Date Posted: 30-Nov-2009 Valid Until: 30-Dec-2009
RGU HONOURS TOP ACHIEVERS IN LITERATURE, MUSIC AND BUSINESS
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, will confer three honorary degrees at its graduation ceremonies on 3rd and 4th December 2009 to Professor Sir Andrew Motion (former Poet Laureate), Karen Matheson (singer with Capercaillie) and Mark McAllister (Chief Executive of Fairfield Energy).
Professor Sir Andrew Motion will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters on Thursday 3 December at 2.30pm. Andrew was born in London in October 1952 and was raised near Braintree in Essex. He was educated at Radley College before going on to read English at University College, Oxford. He left Oxford to take up a post teaching English at the University of Hull where he met Philip Larkin, one of the greatest English poets of the twentieth century. Andrew greatly admired Larkin's work with its tender but sharp observational style and became a good friend.
In 1980, Andrew left Hull to become editor of the Poetry Review and, in 1982, produced the Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry in collaboration with Blake Morrison. He also produced critical works on two poets who have influenced him particularly, Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin. Between 1982 and 1989, he was Editorial Director and Poetry Editor at Chatto and Windus. During this time, he published three collections his own verse, Secret Narratives, Dangerous Play and Natural Causes. He also won the Somerset Maugham Award for his biography, The Lamberts: George, Constant and Kit.
In 1996, Andrew returned to academia by taking up a post at the University of East Anglia and, since 2003, has been Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. In 1999, following the death of Ted Hughes, Andrew was appointed Poet Laureate, a post held by the likes of Dryden, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Betjeman. In the past decade he has given the Laureateship a higher public profile and a new role as an ambassador for poetry. His output during his Laureateship has often caught the public mood, particularly his poems about the invasion of Iraq, the death of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and a poignant work about Harry Patch, the last British Tommy.
During his time as Laureate, Andrew helped establish the Poetry Archive online which now routinely receives quarter of a million hits each month. He is Chairman of the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council, Vice Chairman of the Friends of the British Library and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 2009.
Karen Matheson will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music on Friday 4 December at 10.30am. Karen is widely recognised as the haunting vocals of Celtic super-group Capercaillie. She was given an OBE in the 2006 New Years Honours list, an astonishing achievement to add to her award of "Best Gaelic singer" from the inaugural Scottish folk awards - just two of many plaudits earned from a career which began with her performing as a child in her local village hall in Taynuilt, on the West coast of Scotland.
With Capercaillie, described as: "the most exciting and vibrant band in the field of Celtic music today" (Billboard), Karen has enjoyed a stellar career. Capercaillie have sold more than a million albums across the world, performed in over thirty countries and written and starred in the blockbuster movie 'Rob Roy', with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange, in which Karen performed a solo rendition of a Gaelic lament.
Karen has released three solo albums, The Dreaming Sea, Time to Fall and Downriver, providing the perfect platform for the vocal delights that have stunned audiences around the world and introduced the beautiful Gaelic language to countless thousands of people.
Also as a solo performer, Karen has been involved in various projects of collaboration including the award winning BBC series Transatlantic Sessions, where she recorded tracks with Emmylou Harris, The McGarrigle Sisters, Nanci Griffith, Rufus Wainright and a host of respected musicians. She has been a regular performer at the sold out live shows of this event at the annual Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.
Mark McAllister will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Technology on Friday 4 December at 2.30pm. Mark is Chief Executive of Fairfield Energy. He had previously been a member of the senior management team at LASMO plc and was Managing Director, Europe and North Africa, at the time of the acquisition of LASMO by Eni in 2001. Previously Mark had been on the executive team at Monument Exploration where he was Director of Operations. Mark is a petroleum engineer by discipline and began his North Sea career in 1979 at Conoco. He has worked for a number of companies, large and small, mainly in the North Sea but also in the Former Soviet Union and North Africa. He has an MA (1979) in Engineering from Cambridge University and a BA (1991) in Theology from the London Bible College.
Led by Mark McAllister, Fairfield was created to pursue opportunities provided by the restructuring of asset ownership in the UKCS, as the majors and other long-term acreage holders began to shift their focus to different parts of the world. Fairfield is an innovative upstream oil producer focused on the appraisal and development of hydrocarbon accumulations in the North Sea.
Mark has developed a strategy of getting get more out of fields and discoveries which have either been overlooked or abandoned by other companies or have seen under-investment in recent times. Fairfield have since continued to expand, having been awarded significant acreage in the 25th offshore licensing round. Mark is widely recognised in the oil and gas sector as someone with vision and ability to further develop the North Sea oil and gas industry in this challenging and critical phase.
Press ReleaseRGU HONOURS TOP ACHIEVERS IN LITERATURE, MUSIC AND BUSINESS
