Up

Christopher Rathbone MA MusB FRCO

Christopher Rathbone was born in Selsdon, Surrey, and attended Whitgift School, South Croydon.  He studied piano with John Odom, organ with Harold Milnes, and singing with the Guildhall professor Fabian Smith.  Having attended cathedral courses under RSCM Commissioner Martin How, he joined Croydon Parish Church choir under Roy Massey, and soon after won a choral exhibition to St Catherine’s College Cambridge, studying under the direction of Dr Peter le Huray. 

Having acquired a degree and FRCO (and a wife, Isobel) he moved to Carlisle as Assistant Organist in 1970.  Three years later he was appointed Organist and Assistant Director of Music at Marlborough College, where he worked for 23 years, including a year as Acting Director of Music.  In 1989 he was additionally appointed Musical Director of Swindon Opera, conducting 7 full-scale productions at the Wyvern Theatre. 

In 1996, with three children having left school, he followed his wife to Yorkshire where she had taken up a high-powered Head of Department post in a large solicitors firm in Leeds.  Installed in Oakwood House, a Victorian house in a large garden in Headingley, he became organist of Meanwood Parish Church, Musical Director of Morley Musical Society, and a Lay Clerk at Leeds Parish Church.  He regularly accompanied the Bradford choristers, and later became Musical Director of the Bradford Chorale.  He has guest conducted or accompanied several other choirs.  His compositions have topped the 100 mark, and many have been published either by Banks or by Barry Jordan Music; 3 CDs, all including organ music but also carols, a cello sonata, a big song cycle and the Requiem of 2004, have been produced by Amphion Records.

Christopher and Isobel, who has now retrained and been ordained as an Anglican priest, are both looking forward to new opportunities and challenges in Sussex.