Martin O'BrienLeading organist James O’Donnell talks music and faith with Martin O’Brien
James Anthony O’Donnell, KCSG, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey since January 1, 2000, is not just one of the most acclaimed conductors and organ recitalists in the world – he has also been a participant in and a witness to some of the most important historical ecclesiastical events of our time as well as making history himself by becoming the first Catholic to hold the post at the Abbey since the Reformation.
In 1995 as Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral – his local church – he directed the music at Vespers when Queen Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to attend a service in a Catholic church since the 17th Century.
O’Donnell, 53, the son of two doctors, a Catholic father from Roscommon and an Anglican mother, born in Scotland and brought up in Essex from the age of five, was in charge of the music when Benedict XVI became the first Pope ever to visit Westminster Abbey in 2010.
Tradition
The Abbey organised a remarkable ecumenical Evensong and the Vatican let it be known that Benedict was mightily impressed.
O’Donnell recalls: “I don’t think he had experienced much of the Anglican choral tradition before. I think what we did was we tried to be ourselves. We had some very strong hymns from various traditions and then it had the integrity of following the Evening Office.”
As a thank you, the-then Pope bestowed an honour on James and his choristers never before enjoyed by any choir, Catholic or otherwise: Pope Benedict invited them to the Vatican to sing alongside the Sistine Chapel Choir.
They did so at a Papal Mass in St Peter’s on the Feast of SS Peter and Paul in 2012 and on YouTube you can see the Pope giving O’Donnell a prolonged handshake afterwards.
For good measure, on the same visit the Westminster Abbey Choir also performed a joint recital with the Sistine Choir in the Sistine Chapel itself in the presence of the Vatican Secretary of State.
“The Vatican authorities were extraordinarily generous and hospitable to us. It was amazing and it started a tradition. The following year they invited St Thomas Choir of Leipzig from the Lutheran Church and a year later a Russian choir.”
O’Donnell also directed the music at William and Kate’s Royal wedding in 2011.
“They [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] were charming and very pleasant and they were very excited. It was their wedding ceremony so in a sense they were like any other young couple getting married. But of course they were also utterly unlike any other couple getting married at the same time.”
Downing Street
I had last seen O’Donnell in the White Drawing Room of 10 Downing Street nearly three years ago chalking up another first.
This time, he and the choir were performing for Prime Minister David Cameron and his guests at an Easter reception at which Cameron paid them a warm tribute.
“Number 10 told us the Prime Minister would like some choral music and although it was a very busy time, Holy Week, we said yes. It was a privilege to be asked and now they have a choir there every year.”
We were speaking in St Brigid’s Parish Church in south Belfast recently where O’Donnell performed an organ recital to a large and deeply appreciative audience who gave him a sustained standing ovation. This was O’Donnell’s second visit to St Brigid’s – he performed an earlier recital in 2000.
Parish priest Fr Edward O’Donnell was wise to get in so early because James O’Donnell can only accept a fraction of the invitations he receives from all over the world.
He has performed in such places as the Far East, Australia, America and Russia not to mention numerous European countries.
Dr Niall Leonard, a consultant nephrologist, who succeeded his late father, Bob, as organist and director of music in St Brigid’s said: “It was a great honour to have James O’Donnell perform with St Brigid’s choir. James is a truly inspirational musician of international standing and the evening will last in the memories of all present for years to come.”
O’Donnell says he accepted the invitation because he fondly recalled playing the St Brigid’s organ before and “respects a Catholic parish which has gone to the trouble of putting a good pipe organ in.”
He found St Brigid’s “warm, welcoming and wonderful” and described its 1,000-plus pipe organ, constructed by Wells Kennedy, Lisburn, as “very nice and versatile”.
O’Donnell originally thought about studying law but one is not in his company very long before one sees that his passion for music was so strong from an early age and his ability so great that a high flying professional musical career was probably inevitable.
He learned to play the piano at the age of seven and by 11, “I wanted to get my hands on the wonderful classical Hammond organ” in his grandfather’s house and he was also eyeing “a nice pipe organ” in his local church.
What fascinated him so much about organs?
“I loved the gadgetry of them, all the different keyboards. I loved the power of it [the Hammond]. I suppose it chimed with my sense of Gothic space. It spoke of great cathedrals and great and wonderful large buildings and tradition as well.”
In his 10- or 11-year-old mind, “the best thing in the world would be for me to play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor in a huge cathedral with a very loud organ”.
He was soon attending a local specialist music school on Saturday mornings and became greatly encouraged by an inspirational teacher, David Frostick, who introduced him to the harpsichord and, by 13, he had become a junior exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music.
He says it “dawned on me progressively that this was something I was interested in and good at and I worked hard and decided I wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge as an Organ Scholar”.
At 17, he applied for and secured an organ scholarship to Jesus College Cambridge where as part of the deal the organ scholar served as director of music in the college chapel.
He didn’t know it at the time but he was being prepared for greatness.
James graduated with first class honours in 1982 and was immediately offered a job as assistant master of music in Westminster Cathedral.
He became Master in 1988 and then made headlines when apparently against the odds he secured the top job in Westminster Abbey after the controversial sacking of the previous incumbent.
O’Donnell clearly loves his job right at the top of his profession at the heart of an institution like no other in the country that has hosted every coronation of a monarch since 1066.
“I haven’t been employed as a Catholic, I have been employed as a professional Church musician.”
But O’Donnell’s Catholic faith is important, indeed central to his life, although “it is not something I am terribly comfortable talking about publicly because I regard it as a fairly private thing”.
And he is rarely questioned about it.
“I am a practising Catholic, I regard myself as a Christian and I regard that as one of the key foundations of my career in Church music, certainly. I would find it harder to rationalise my life unless I did have a strong faith.”
Above all one is struck by how grateful he is for the good things he has been given.
James O’Donnell says: “I have been very fortunate in my life. I have received many blessings and I have a lot to be thankful for.”