James O'Donnell

James O'Donnell ranks among the foremost British organists of his era. Although his primary duties have centered on church music and choral direction, he has sustained an active presence as both organist and conductor in the concert hall. His programming has spanned Renaissance masters such as Palestrina and Josquin Desprez alongside twentieth-century figures including Stravinsky and Poulenc. More than forty of his recordings have appeared on the Hyperion label.

Born in Scotland on August 15, 1961, O'Donnell secured a scholarship to the Royal College of Music while still in his teens. He later became organ scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge University, where he earned multiple prizes and distinctions in organ performance under the guidance of Nicholas Kynaston, Peter Hurford, and David Sanger. Following his graduation in 1982, he joined Westminster Cathedral as assistant master of music, a position that quickly yielded his earliest recordings with the cathedral choir on Hyperion: Victoria's Missa Vidi Speciosam in 1984 and the 1985 anthology Treasures of the Spanish Renaissance, devoted to Francisco Guerrero and other Iberian composers.

In 1988 he advanced to master of music at Westminster Cathedral, assuming full direction of its celebrated choir. Under his leadership the ensemble performed frequently in concert and for radio and television broadcasts while producing further distinguished recordings, among them Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms in 1990 and Duruflè's Requiem in 1994. From 1997 to 2004 he held a professorship in organ at the Royal Academy of Music, continuing thereafter as visiting professor. In 2000 he moved to Westminster Abbey as director of daily choral services and music for state occasions, a role that also encompassed the Abbey Choir's concerts, recordings, and tours across Europe, Japan, Australia, and the United States. As a conductor he has collaborated regularly with period-instrument groups such as the Hanover Band and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, while appearing as keyboard soloist or continuo player with the Gabrieli Consort and the King's Consort. He served as president of the Royal College of Organists from 2011 to 2013.

Although the majority of his discography has been issued by Hyperion, additional releases have appeared on Chandos, Decca, and Signum Classics. With the Westminster Abbey Choir he recorded a program of Christopher Tye's music in 2012 and Hubert Parry's Songs of Farewell in 2020. In 2022 O'Donnell announced his departure from Westminster at year's end to join the faculty of Yale's School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music. That same year the Gesualdo Six included his choral work Present Yourselves as a Living Sacrifice on the album Lux Aeterna. Also in 2022 he directed the Westminster Abbey Choir during the funeral observances for Queen Elizabeth II, leading a performance of his Psalm 139: Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me with the Choir of the Chapel Royal at the coffin reception on September 14 and Judith Weir's Like as the hart at the state funeral on September 19.