Profile of John Rutter on Famous Like Me

John Rutter is also the name of a photographer.

John Rutter (born September 24, 1945) is an English composer, choral conductor, editor, arranger and record producer.

Born in London, he was educated at Highgate School, where a fellow pupil was John Tavener. He then studied music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was 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), particularly under his own label Collegium Records. 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.

Compositions

Rutter's 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. He has also written an opera for young people called Bang!

He is published principally by Oxford University Press, and also by his own company Collegium.

Influences

Rutter's 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 composing and conducting 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. 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 composition, Mass of the Children, composed after the untimely death of his son Christopher while a student.

Reputation

Rutter's music is very popular, particularly in the USA (NBC's Today Show called him "the world's greatest living composer and conductor of choral music"); 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.

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