17 Facts About John Rutter

Sir John Milford Rutter was born on 24 September 1945 and is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.

John Rutter was educated at Highgate School, where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman.

John Rutter thence read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir.

John Rutter served as director of music at Clare College from 1975 to 1979, and led the choir to international prominence.

In 1981, John Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire, particularly under his own label Collegium Records.

From 1985 to 1992, John Rutter suffered severely from myalgic encephalomyelitis, which restricted his output; after 1985, he stopped writing music on commission, as he was unable to guarantee meeting deadlines.

John Rutter was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity in 1985.

John Rutter is a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers, President of The Bach Choir, and President of the Association of British Choral Directors.

John Rutter's compositions are chiefly choral, and include Christmas carols, anthems and extended works such as the Gloria, the Requiem and the Magnificat.

The first two choral items sung at the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving in June 2022 were arrangements by John Rutter, as were no fewer than six items performed at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla.

John 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.

John Rutter 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.

John Rutter's music is very popular, particularly in the UK and US.

In 1980 John Rutter was made an honorary fellow of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and in 1988 he became a fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians.

John Rutter was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Year Honours and knighted in the 2024 Birthday Honours, both for services to music.

In 2008 John Rutter became an honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple while playing a significant role in the 2008 Temple Festival.

In 2023 John Rutter became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy.