John Rutter, one of the best-loved composers

Born in London, he studied at Highgate School with John Tavener. He also studied music at Clare College, Cambridge University, where he was later appointed professor of organ first and then choral conducting from 1975 to 1979.

In 1981 he founded the Cambridge Singers choir, which he continues to conduct today and with who has recorded a vast repertoire of sacred music (including his own compositions), specifically with his own record company, Collegium Records.

He lives near Cambridge and is often called upon to conduct other leading professional and amateur choirs and orchestras around the world.

Rutter’s compositions are mainly aimed at choral music of the a cappella motet genre, but also of a more structurally complex nature with very extensive works such as the Gloria and the Requiem. In 2002 his version of Psalm 150, commissioned for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, was performed for Thanksgiving Mass at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Rutter also composed a work for young people called Bang!

His compositions are published primarily by Oxford University Press but also by his music publishing house Collegium.

Rutter’s music clearly shows influences from the contemporary English and French choral tradition, as well as pop music and the American choral tradition. Although he has often composed and conducted religious music, Rutter told the US television program 60 Minutes in 2003 that he is not a particularly practicing person, but that he receives particular inspiration from the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers. The 60 Minutes episode, which aired a week before Christmas 2003, focused on Rutter’s vast popularity with choral groups in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, and on his composition Mass of the Children. Children”), composed after the untimely death of his son Christopher, a young student.

Read the interview, edited by Andrea Angelini, published on FarCoro