Andrew Nethsingha takes top Westminster Abbey job

Andrew Nethsingha has been appointed organist and master of choristers at Westminster Abbey in London, taking up the post at the start of 2023. He is currently director of music at St John’s College, Cambridge, where last year he made history when he announced the all-male choir would be open to girls and women for the first time. It’s the first Oxbridge choir to include male and female voices among both the child and adult singers.

He takes over from James O’Donnell – who has been a long-standing fixture at the helm of the renowned choir for the past 22 years – and will be responsible for leading musical life at the Abbey. ‘It will be a great privilege to contribute to the worship in a building of such beauty and historical significance,’ says Nethsingha. ‘Following the work of his eminent predecessors, James O’Donnell has created a choir of enormous distinction.’

O’Donnell departs Westminster this Christmas after being appointed Professor in the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He leaves behind a strong musical legacy, including a series of acclaimed recordings for the Hyperion record label. Their most recent album, of works by Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir, and Matthew Martin, was described by Gramophone as ‘glorious’.

Nethsingha has enjoyed an equally successful 15 years at St John’s College, and his recorded legacy ranges from music by Mozart to Jonathan Harvey, released on the in-house label which he set up. And in 2008, he spearheaded the annual Advent commission series, premiering new works from the likes of Helen Grime, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Gabriel Jackson. Previously himself an organ scholar at the Cambridge college, Nethsingha went on to hold roles at Wells, Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals, and was also artistic director of the Three Choirs Festival.