Article January 6, 2003 Issue

'Almost beautiful!'

Composer and choral conductor John Rutter at work

By Kim Shippey Senior Writer

Imagine the scene. A snowy winter afternoon with soft sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows of an imposing Romanesque 19th-century building. The singers, more suitably dressed for football practice than choir practice, are running through Hubert Parry's setting of text taken from Psalm 122, "I Was Glad," in preparation for an ambitious Sunday afternoon concert.

In the back row, an unshaven young man with a ponytail wears a reversed baseball cap. A rotund gentleman near him has a rugby shirt hanging loosely over his belt. A woman down front is in luminous lemon leggings. She turns out to be the only one who knows the music well enough to perform without a score.

The conductor, John Rutter, is the short, bespectacled man in creased khaki twills with a Fair Isle pullover over a woolen checked shirt that's buttoned at the wrists. His accent is unmistakably "Southern English" and surprisingly penetrating for a man of such modest physical stature.

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