Stuart Mclaren

Your Lessons with Stuart Mclaren

Stuart McLaren has been teaching drum kit at Red Rock Music since 2023 and brings a wealth of experience to his students. He is the current holder of the Senior Instrumentalist (Batá Drums) Gold Medal at the Arbroath Music Festival.

Stuart began performing at just 14 years old and has been a core member of the Strathmore Ceilidh Band since 1997, playing Scottish music across the country. He has also performed rock and roll alongside legendary artists such as The Searchers, The Troggs, and P.J. Proby. Beyond performance, Stuart has led numerous hand drum workshops for youth groups, councils, charities, and the NHS, sharing his passion for rhythm and percussion.

His journey with Batá drums began as an unexpected fascination while attempting to learn congas. Over two decades, he studied the traditional three-drum structure of Batá—Okónkolo, Itótele, and Iyá—mastering them one by one. In 2022, he set himself the challenge of playing all three drum parts of the Oru Seco (a traditional Santería ceremony) simultaneously from memory. With his strong background in music reading and arrangement, he achieved this goal faster than expected, performing the Oru Seco at Dundee University in October 2024.

In December 2024, Stuart was honored to perform Batá drums at Edinburgh’s first-ever Yorùbá community event, a significant milestone in his musical journey.

You can follow Stuart’s practice journal on YouTube: http://youtube.com/owodrumming