John Rutter
John Rutter writes and arranges choral music that sits easily with choirs and congregations: Christmas carols, hymns for the church year, and extended sacred works whose melodies are built for the human voice.
His carols and anthems often exist in several scorings, from keyboard to full orchestra, so the same piece can serve a parish choir or a concert stage. The writing draws on English and French choral habits as well as lighter songcraft, keeping lines singable and the harmony clear. On record he appears both as composer, with Angels' Carol among modern seasonal settings, and as arranger of traditional Christmas and hymn tunes shaped for full acoustic spaces. Larger works such as the Gloria, Requiem and Magnificat sit in the regular choral repertoire beside the shorter pieces choirs return to each year.
Compositions by John Rutter appear on
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, presents a varied selection of twenty-eight Christmas carols. Familiar favourites sit beside Bach and Pachelbel organ pieces and twentieth-century settings.
Hymns For All Seasons
Sixteen further hymns from Cantus Choro, recorded in the grand acoustic of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. The programme opens with Advent and follows the great events of the Christian year, with Norman Kaye at the organ and the Melbourne Brass Ensemble.
Christmas Joy and a Ceremony of Carols
The Melbourne Academy Boys Choir, directed by Andrew Blackburn, offers a Christmas programme of familiar carols and distinctive concert works by Kodály, Grüber, Britten and others.