by James Whitbourn, who has died of cancer aged 60, was a versatile composer, conductor and producer who wrote orchestral pieces such as Bridge Over Tay, the BBC’s title music for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother in 2002, and D-Day 60. , the 60th anniversary of the capture of D-Day two years later; in commemoration at Westminster Abbey of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he composed Living Voices (2001) for saxophone and voices, performed in New York on the centenary of the attacks.
His music was in line with the mystical minimalism of John Tavener and Henryk Gorecki and included Aiffreann Mac Dé (2001), another derivative of his theme tune for the BBC television series documenting the life of Christ, and A Prayer. by Desmond Tutu (2004), an ethereal piece with African rhythms, with the text spoken on the CD by Tutu himself.
Later he wrote the choral work, The Seven Heavens (2014), a musical portrait of CS Lewis using the imagery of the seven medieval planets.
Whitbourn, a mild-mannered figure with dark square glasses, often tackled big issues, as in Pika (2000), a large-scale cantata commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima.
His most famous work, however, was Annelies, a 75-minute oratorio that uses Anne Frank’s diary adapted by Melanie Challenger to tell the story of a young Jewish girl hiding with her family from the Nazis. Annelies premiered in London in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and has been recorded numerous times, including one that received a Grammy Award nomination in 2014.
Reviewing the first performance, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, The Daily Telegraph noted how Whitbourn “can draw on Bach’s chorale style as easily as can compose the 19th century. century ballad waltz. He can make big gestures or use a sugary line from a solo violin. He can recite a simple song with a skill in choral writing that would put Vaughan Williams or Walton to shame.”
James Philip Edwin Whitbourn was born in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 17 August 1963, the younger of two children of Philip Whitbourn and Anne, née Marks.
He was educated at Skinners School and by 16 was writing hymns for St James’s Church, Tunbridge Wells, before winning a scholarship to read music at Magdalen College, Oxford.
He landed at the BBC in the early 1990s, produced and presented Prayer for the Day on Radio 4. For Radio 3 he edited Choral Evensong, explaining to Gillian Reynolds in the Telegraph that the program was very popular. because the experience of the listener was so close to say. of a person who is there personally.
“The choral song is a time for great stillness when the people are inspired by the beauty of choral music and singing,” he said.
He also produced the annual broadcast Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and presented episodes of Seeds of Faith (1993), exploring the history of Christmas carols, and The Sound of Prayer (1995), discussing the challenges music that precedes. parish churches whose congregations have different musical tastes.
His contribution to Between the Ears included a 1990 play on the Book of Revelation with Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi.
Elsewhere, Whitbourn was executive producer of the Royal Opera House’s Opus Arte record label. On the podium he has led the BBC Philharmonic, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and his own professional vocal ensemble The Choir, whose award-nominated DVD recording of John Tavener’s choral music, Choral Ikons Gramophone in 2002.
Ultimately the pull of Oxford brought Whitbourn back to the city, He was an Honorary Research Fellow of Stephen’s House from 2011 and a Senior Research Fellow from 2019; in 2020 he was appointed music director at St Edmund’s Hall.
His first composition for the college choir was an arrangement of the Evening Canticles for an Evensong live over Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the choir performing on whatever musical instrument was available to them using a cord he had provided.
Despite his faith, Whitbourn had a healthy skepticism about formal religion, recalling that someone once compared religions to political parties: “Both begin with the flame of faith but turn into bureaucracies that preserve power and influence .”
Recently his musical interests have been in Egypt and last year his Zahr Al-Khayal (“Flowers of the Imagination”), for soprano and symphony orchestra and performed by Fatma Said in Arabic, received its first performance at the Konzerthaus Berlin.
His final work, Requiem orchestrated by John Rutter, will have its first performance in New York on April 13 given by the Westminster College Choir from Rider University, which commissioned the piece.
In 1991 Whitbourn married Alison Jones, who also worked in religious broadcasting at the BBC. She lives with him with their three children, his parents and his sister.
James Whitbourn, born 17 August 1963, died 12 March 2024
