John Rutter
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John Rutter (born September 24, 1945) is an English composer, choral conductor, editor and arranger.
He was educated at Highgate School, where a fellow pupil was John Tavener. He then studied music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was first organ scholar and then director of music from 1975 to 1979. In 1981 he founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works). He still lives near Cambridge, but frequently conducts other choirs and orchestras around the world.
He also works as an arranger and editor, most notably (in his youth) of the extraordinarily successful Carols for Choirs anthology series in collaboration with Sir David Willcocks.
His compositions are chiefly choral, and include Christmas carols, anthems and extended works such as the Gloria and Requiem. In 2002 his setting of Psalm 150, commissioned for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, was performed at the Thanksgiving service in St Paul's Cathedral, London. His music is eclectic, showing the influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early 20th century, as well as of light music and American classic songwriting.
Despite being a composer of much religious music and directing a group which performs much religious music, Rutter told the US television program 60 Minutes in 2003 that he was not particularly a religious man but he is inspired by the spiritualness of sacred verses and prayers.[1] (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/60II/main589173.shtml) Many of Rutter's recordings with his group, The Cambridge Singers, are made in ancient settings, such as the Lady Chapel of England's Ely Cathedral. The 60 Minutes program, which aired a week before Christmas 2003, focused on Rutter's sweeping popularity among choral groups in the United States, Britain and other parts of the world and on his latest original composition, Mass of the Children, composed after the untimely death of his son.
The NBC Today Show has called Rutter "the world's greatest living composer and conductor of choral music."
His music is very popular, particularly in the USA; though in the UK it receives a more mixed reception, as many from the Anglican choral tradition do not regard him as a sufficiently 'serious' composer. In terms of performances he is undoubtedly the most successful choral composer of his generation, and probably of the past century. For example, his Shepherd's Pipe Carol, written while he was still at school, is reputed to have sold well over one million copies in sheet music alone.
A quite well known opera by him is Bang!, an opera for young people.
External links
- Rutter at the Oxford University Press website (http://www.oup.co.uk/music/repprom/rutter/)de:John Rutter