As the Bentley-owning son of a prosperous middle-class family, John Tavener seemed an unlikely champion of spiritual awakening. Born in north London in 1944, he first appeared an able disciple of Stravinsky with his “dramatic cantata” The Whale (1965-66), released on the Beatles’ Apple label in 1970, and Requiem for Father Malachy (1973). Then he found his authentic voice after converting to the Orthodox Church in 1977. Drawing on a passion for ritual and its expression in music, he began writing pieces, including “Funeral Ikos” (1981) and the monumental “Akathist of Thanksgiving” (1986-87), which combined modernist logic with the austere beauty of Eastern chant. Tavener attracted international attention with “The Protecting Veil” (1987), an “icon in sound” for solo cello and orchestra, and a global audience of billions when his “Song for Athene” was sung at the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. His spiritual quest ultimately led him to the world’s great sacred traditions, brought together in The Veil of the Temple, an eight-hour universalist epic akin to a communal meditation, and in such exquisite late works as “Prayer of the Heart”, composed for Björk, and the “Missa Wellensis”, written shortly before his death in 2013.