Philip Ledger

Ledger was noted for compositions and arrangements, especially for choir. After succeeding David Willcocks as Director at King's, he wrote a number of new descants and arrangements of Christmas carols, and settings of popular texts such as "Adam lay ybounden" and "A Spotless Rose". His arrangement of "This joyful Eastertide" for mixed voices and organ has been widely performed and broadcast. Many of his works and editions were published by Oxford University Press, Encore Publications, the Lorenz Corporation (USA), and the Royal School of Church Music. His Requiem A Thanksgiving for Life is for soprano and tenor soloists with mixed choir and may be performed with an orchestra, chamber ensemble or organ. The first recording devoted wholly to his choral works, including his Requiem, was made on 7–8 December 2008 by Christ's College Chapel Choir, Cambridge, directed by David Rowland and Ledger. An album of it was released by Regent Records on 16 November 2009. Ledger also composed an Easter cantata with carols entitled The Risen Christ, premièred in the US at Washington National Cathedral on 7 May 2011 and in the UK at evensong in Canterbury Cathedral on 8 May 2011. In 2012, Ledger composed a further cantata, This Holy Child, which was first performed on 16 December 2012 at a morning church service at First Presbyterian Church, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Philip Ledger was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1985 New Year Honours, and knighted in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to music. He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Strathclyde, Central England, Glasgow and St Andrews, and from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He was President of the Royal College of Organists in 1992–1994 and of the Incorporated Society of Musicians in 1994–1995, and a patron of Bampton Classical Opera. He was awarded a fellowship by the Royal Northern College of Music in 1989. Ledger was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).