Jonathan Rathbone
Jonathan Rathbone started his musical career as a chorister at Coventry Cathedral. He was a choral scholar at Christ's College Cambridge, where he read mathematics. He gained a second degree at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied composition with John Gardner. The Academy has since honoured him with an ARAM.
Having sung with St Bride's Choir, Fleet St and with the BBC Singers, Jonathan joined the Swingle Singers in 1984 and was musical director for the group for over a decade. During that time he turned from composition to arranging - creating the majority of their arrangements, both a cappella and with orchestra. He left the group in 1996 to spend more of his time writing and now spends his time arranging and orchestrating. Amongst others, he has orchestrated for Katherine Jenkins, the King's Singers, Sir Cliff Richard, Michael Ball, Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and orchestras all over Europe.
He conducts four choirs in north London - London Forest Choir, The Rowantree Choir, Havering Singers and the Crofton Singers. Having reached retirement age over a year ago, he finally finished his work at Middlesex University (where he had taught harmony and aural for over a decade) and this year he will stand down from the Havering Singers. He has also occasionally taught Choral Arranging at Cambridge University.
He is also musical director at his local church, St Mary's Walthamstow.
He continues to write, arrange and orchestrate for a wide range of groups such as Voces 8, The Hi-Lo Singers, the Edvard Grieg Kor (based in Bergen), Vocalocity (based in Israel), a student choir in Stockholm, the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in London and Coventry Cathedral.
He also writes and records all the jingles for the popular podcast "Where there's a Will, there's a Wake" starring Kathy Burke.
He is presently working on a choir version of "The Happy Prince", and a major piece, "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners", for the Vasari Singers.
He is married to Helen. also a former Swingle Singer. This enables him to produce the jingles and lots of recordings of choral music at home as learning resources for his choirs and for his local church.
