JONATHAN RUTHERFORD
Jonathan started discovering sounds at the piano at the age of 5. Later, he studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School. During school holidays, Jonathan showed his compositions to Lennox Berkeley; and on leaving school he annually attended Dartington Summer School where Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle supervised composition courses. He spent a year in Paris studying harmony with Nadia Boulanger, and piano with Jacques Fèvrier. In 1972 he had a lesson/meeting with Benjamin Britten.
He has spent much of his life working in professional theatre, first in London’s West End on musicals such as Annie, and then at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has given perhaps as many as sixty piano recitals in Suffolk between 2004 and 2017. His work The Pied Piper of Hamelin was performed on different occasions by Johnny Morris, Colin Baker, and Patricia Routledge. His recent recordings of his compositions are on sale at this concert: “Lazy Afternoon” with Nicholas Daniel (oboe) Michal Kaznowski (cello) and the Maggini String Quartet on the Meridian Record label; “I Slept and Dreamed that Life was Beauty” and “The Wilderness and the Solitary Place” performed by London Voices and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ben Parry on Orchid Classics.He has recently completed an opera called “Morpheus” with librettist Rebecca Knight.
Jonathan started discovering sounds at the piano at the age of 5. Later, he studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School. During school holidays, Jonathan showed his compositions to Lennox Berkeley; and on leaving school he annually attended Dartington Summer School where Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle supervised composition courses. He spent a year in Paris studying harmony with Nadia Boulanger, and piano with Jacques Fèvrier. In 1972 he had a lesson/meeting with Benjamin Britten.
He has spent much of his life working in professional theatre, first in London’s West End on musicals such as Annie, and then at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has given perhaps as many as sixty piano recitals in Suffolk between 2004 and 2017. His work The Pied Piper of Hamelin was performed on different occasions by Johnny Morris, Colin Baker, and Patricia Routledge. His recent recordings of his compositions are on sale at this concert: “Lazy Afternoon” with Nicholas Daniel (oboe) Michal Kaznowski (cello) and the Maggini String Quartet on the Meridian Record label; “I Slept and Dreamed that Life was Beauty” and “The Wilderness and the Solitary Place” performed by London Voices and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ben Parry on Orchid Classics.He has recently completed an opera called “Morpheus” with librettist Rebecca Knight.
