Sir John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. He founded the Cambridge Singers who premiered and recorded many of his works for his own label Collegium Records. His compositions, extended pieces for choir and orchestra, such as Requiem and Magnificat, and many choral works including For the beauty of the earth, Christmas Carol and A Clare Benediction, are popular, especially in the UK and the United States. He is known for Christmas carols, in both arrangements of traditional melodies and new compositions, and Carols for Choirs anthology series compiled with David Willcocks.
In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he has conducted, and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works),[1] particularly under his own label Collegium Records.[4]
From 1985 to 1992, Rutter suffered severely from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome), which restricted his output; after 1985, he stopped writing music on commission, as he was unable to guarantee meeting deadlines.[5]
Rutter also works as an arranger and editor. As a young man, he collaborated with Sir David Willcocks on five volumes of the extraordinarily successful Carols for Choirs anthology series.[4]
He was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity in 1985.[6][7] Rutter is also a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers, President of The Bach Choir, and President of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD).[8]
There is also the children's opera Bang! (1975) and orchestral works such as Cityscapes (aka Partita, 1974), The Beatles Concerto (1977), Reflections (1979, a three movement piano concerto with orchestral prelude), Suite Antique (1979), and the more recent Four Miniatures for Orchestra (2021) and Celebration Overture (2023).[12]
His many choral works and anthems often appear in different versions, for different voices, and accompaniment from keyboard to large orchestra, including:[14]
A Gaelic Blessing for SATB and organ or guitar, commissioned in 1978 by the Chancel Choir of the First United Methodist Church, Omaha, Nebraska, in honour of minister of music Mel Olson (1978)
Rutter's music is eclectic, showing the influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early twentieth century as well as of light music and American classic songwriting. Almost every choral anthem and hymn that he writes has a subsequent orchestral accompaniment in addition to the standard piano/organ accompaniment, using various different instrumentations such as strings only, strings and woodwinds or full orchestra with brass and percussion.[15] Many of his works have also been arranged for concert band with optional chorus.[16]
Despite composing and conducting much religious music, Rutter told the US television programme 60 Minutes in 2003 that he was not a particularly religious man, yet still deeply spiritual and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers.[17][18] The main topics considered in the 60 Minutes programme, which was broadcast a week before Christmas 2003, were Rutter's popularity with choral groups in the United States, Britain, and other parts of the world, and his composition Mass of the Children, composed after the sudden death of his son Christopher while a student at Clare College, Cambridge, where Rutter himself had studied.[19]
In a 2009 interview, Rutter discussed his understanding of "genius" and its unique ability to transform lives—whether that genius is communicated in the form of music or other media. He likened the purity of music to that of mathematics and connected the two with a reference to the discovery made by the early Greeks that frequencies of harmonic pitches are related by whole-number ratios.[2]
Reception
Rutter's music is very popular, particularly in the UK and US.[17][20] Many hold him in high regard in the UK, as illustrated by the following quotation from a review in the London Evening Standard (25 September 2005): "For the infectiousness of his melodic invention and consummate craftsmanship, Rutter has few peers."[13]Sue Lawley referred to Rutter as "the most celebrated and successful composer of carols alive today"[21] and Sean Rafferty heralded Rutter as "a creator of not just carols, but wonderfully great things for the human voice."[22]The Guardian remarked that "it is as a writer of carols that he has really made his mark ... His larger-scale works – particularly the Gloria (1974), Requiem (1985) and Magnificat (1990) – are also well established in the choral repertoire."[23]David Willcocks considered Rutter "the most gifted composer of his generation."[24]
In 2008 Rutter also became an honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple while playing a significant role in the 2008 Temple Festival. In 2023 Rutter became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy. Signified by the presentation of an Ivor Novello Award, Fellowship is also a position within the Academy's members and is the highest honour bestowed by the association of music creators.[27]
Burrows, Helen Jane (1999). Choral Music and the Church of England 1970–1995: A Study of Selected Works and Composer–Church Relations. PhD thesis. Norwich: University of East Anglia.
Dakers, Lionel (1978). Making Church Music Work. Oxford and London: Mowbray.
Frank, Alan (1976). "John Rutter's Partita for Orchestra". The Musical Times 117, no. 1598 (April): 309.
Morrison, Richard (1992). "Tis the Season to Be Authentic". The Times (3 November): 29.
Westermeyer, Paul (1994). "John Rutter: Popular Romantic". Christian Century 111, no. 35 (7 December): 1158.
External links
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