John Scott Whitely (Organist)
John Scott Whiteley is Organist Emeritus of York Minster, having worked at
that cathedral from 1975 until 2010. Over the past ten years he has become
well-known for his performances on BBC2 and BBC4 of the complete organ music of
Johann Sebastian Bach. 21st Century Bach was a joint commission by BBC2 and BBC4
and began in 2001. The series continues and is planned to run for several more
years, after which time some eighty programmes will have covered Bach’s entire
output for organ. The series was described by Britain’s The Daily Telegraph as
“a triumph both nationally and musically.” Having studied at the Royal
College of Music under Ralph Downes and W. S. Lloyd Webber, as well as under
Flor Peeters in Malines and maestro Fernando Germani in Siena, John Scott
Whiteley won 1st prize at the1976 National Organ Competition of Great Britain.
He has performed at the Royal Festival Hall, for the UK Annual Conference of the
Incorporated Association of Organists and at festivals throughout Europe. The
most recent of these have included the 2005 International Organ Festival in St
Albans (UK), the 2006 Musicometa festival in Rome and the 2008 Bach Festivals in
Skierniewice (Poland) and Camaiore (Italy). Starting in 1985, for twenty years
John Scott Whiteley regularly toured to the USA.
The organist currently has twenty-four solo CD recordings to his credit on
the EMI, Guild, Regent, Priory, Amphion, Boreas and York Ambisonic labels. He
has appeared as an accompanist in a further twenty-two recordings. His CD Great
Romantic Organ Music appeared for eight years in the Penguin Good CD Guide as
one of the best recorded organ recitals, and several other CDs have won awards,
notably a Critic’s Choice Award from The Gramophone. This award-winning
recording, The Complete Organ Works of Joseph Jongen, formed the basis of some
recent programmes made for the American Public Radio Network’s Pipedreams
series.
John Scott Whiteley has researched and published books about the music of
both Bach and the Belgian composer Joseph Jongen. He has contributed articles on
Bach to The Organ Yearbook and on Jongen to The New Grove: Dictionary of Music
and Musicians. In 2003 he was principal lecturer and recitalist at the Colloque
Joseph Jongen organised by the Brussels Conservatoire.
The organist has also transcribed, published and re-recorded the famous
Symphonie improvisйe recorded by Pierre Cochereau at Notre-Dame in Paris in
1963.
Composition continues to occupy him more frequently, and he has now completed
some eighteen works for organ and seventeen church compositions. The former
include his Passacaglia and five pieces inspired by the Five Sisters Windows in
York Minster. His church music includes Five Cathedral Motets and the
large-scale anthem At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners. A number of Whiteley’s
compositions have been broadcast on BBC Radio Three and in 2010 he recorded a CD
of his own organ works played on the organ of York Minster.
From 2000-2008, John Scott Whiteley was Director of the Girl Choristers of
York Minster, with whom he recorded a CD of the music of Orlande de Lassus in
2008. He has taught the organ at the Universities of Hull and Huddersfield and,
as a visiting tutor, at the Royal Northern College of Music. Jury member of
numerous organ competitions.
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