John Scott Whiteley

John Scott Whiteley is Organist of York Minster, and has recently become known for his performances on BBC2 and BBC4 television of the complete organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. 21st-Century Bach is 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 the British daily national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, as “a triumph both visually and musically.” Having studied at the Royal College of Music, and with Fernando Germani in Siena and Flor Peeters in Malines, John Scott Whiteley won first prize in the 1976 National Organ Competition of Great Britain. He then performed at the Royal Festival Hall, for the UK Annual Conference of the Incorporated Association of Organists, and at festivals throughout Europe.

John Scott Whiteley

The most recent of these include the 2005 International Organ Festival in St. Albans, the 2006 Musicometa Festival in Rome, and 2008 Bach Festivals in Skiernewice, Poland, and Camaiore, Italy. A recent recital at Birmingham Symphony Hall has led to an invitation to present a further Bach concert in 2010. Between 1985 and 2005 John Scott Whiteley toured the USA annually, represented by the well-known agency, Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists. He now has some twenty-five CD recordings to his credit. These have been recorded by EMI, Guild, Regent, Priory, Amphion and York Ambisonics and several have won awards, notably a Critic's Choice award from the Gramophone. In 1999 the American Public Radio Network's nationwide Pipedreams programme transmitted a complete programme of his playing. The DVDs of the first two series of 21st-Century Bach were released in April 2006, and a complete run of the first three series is being issued by Signum. A DVD of the organ at York Minster was issued by Priory in 2008.

John Scott Whiteley has researched and published books about the music of 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, and in 2003 he was principal lecturer and recitalist at the Colloque Joseph Jongenorganised by the Conservatoire of Brussels. He has also transcribed, published and re-recorded the famous Symphony improvised by Pierre Cochereau at Notre-Dame in 1963. As a composer, he has written organ music and church music, some of which has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Between 2000 and 2008 John Scott Whiteley directed the Girl Choristers at York Minster, with whom he recorded a CD of the music of Orlande de Lassus in 2008. He has taught the organ at the University of Hull, and, as a visiting tutor, at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he has also adjudicated. He is an examiner for the ABRSM and for the Council of the Royal College of Organists, having been a member of the council for over ten years.

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