Academic, composer and musician. Born in Greenock, Macbeth grew up in Edinburgh, where his father became a portrait painter. He studied music at the prestigious Leipzig Conservatorium in Germany. On his return to Scotland, he settled in Glasgow, where he conducted the Glasgow Choral Union between 1880 and 1887. Macbeth became the first Principal of the School of Music at the Glasgow Athenaeum in 1890, which eventually became the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Macbeth was responsible for a series of staff appointments which cemented the reputation of that School.
Macbeth's varied compositions included chamber music, piano music, songs, an operetta, and a popular intermezzo Forget Me Not. He was also a noted organist, first at Woodside Church, where he organised the first boy's choir in a Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and subsequently at St. George's-in-the-Fields and then St. Matthew's Church.
He died in Glasgow.
