Alfred Whitehead

Alfred Ernest Whitehead (10 July 1887 – 1 April 1974) was an English-born Canadian composer, organist, choirmaster, music educator, painter, whose works are held in a number of important private collections, and an internationally recognized authority in the field of philately. His The Squared-Circle Cancellations of Canada received its third edition shortly after his death.

Whitehead's music is tonal and sometimes modal; his output of motets and anthems was extensive and he took particular pride in the anthems Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (with organ accompaniment),Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem, Now God Be with Us, and O Light Beyond Our Utmost Light, the short motets Bread of the World, Grant Us Grace, and Almighty God, Whose Glory. Leo Sowerby, a leading American cathedral organist-composer, described Whitehead's Benedicite, based on the Gregorian Tonus peregrinus, as the "best Benedicite" he knew. Whitehead's eight-part motets Watch Thou, Dear Lord (words by St Augustine) and Love Unknown, the Brahmsian organ Prelude on Irby, and his many short carols for Christmas, are also noteworthy.

Whitehead was born in Peterborough, where he received his early musical education as an articled pupil of Peterborough Cathedral organists Haydn Keeton and C. C. Francis. He studied in London with organist and theorist A. Eaglefield Hull at the Royal College of Music, earning an Associateship in 1910. In 1912, he emigrated to Canada, and in 1913 was the first person to earn the Fellowship of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO). Then, by successful examination and submission of composition exercises, he earned the external Bachelor of Music of the University of Toronto in 1916, and Doctor of Music of McGill University in 1922.

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