Biography 

James Chater was born in 1951 in the UK and studied music at the University of Oxford. After studying for a few years in Italy he obtained a doctorate for a thesis on the Italian madrigal composer Marenzio (1980).  For the next  few years the "scholar  gipsy" routine took him to Wales, the USA and Canada, where he taught and studied music at universities. After that he edited booklets for the Philips recording label in the Netherlands (1986-97), then worked as an editor for Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians in London (1997-2000). Since 2000 he has been working for KCI Publishing in the Netherlands. 
His current musical activities are mostly focussed on composing and arranging music for liturgical use in the Russian Orthodox Church, of which he has been a member since 1995. His music has been performed on the Dutch radio channel De Concertzender, in Finland and in Russia.