Philip Cannon (composer)

Jack Philip Cannon (21 December 1929 – 24 December 2016) was a British composer and teacher. His choral music and songs have enjoyed extensive performances worldwide.

Philip Cannon was born in Paris on 21 December 1929, to Franco-British parents. The family moved to Falmouth in Cornwall in 1936, where Philip was educated at the local Grammar School. Cannon subsequently studied with Imogen Holst at Dartington and with Gordon Jacob and Vaughan-Williams at the Royal College of Music, where (in 1951) he was awarded the Octavia Travelling Scholarship.

In 1958 he became a Lecturer in music at Sydney University, before returning to the Royal College in London in 1960 as Professor of Composition, a post which he held until his retirement in 1995. He was appointed FRCM in 1971.

Cannon’s String Quartet of 1964 won two international awards in France. A number of high-profile commissions followed, including his work for 24 solo strings Oraison funèbre de l’âme humaine (1970) for French Radio, his choral work Son of Man (1975), commissioned by the BBC to mark the entry of the UK into the EEC, and three works of great beauty for the Three Choirs Festival: The Temple in 1974 (which later became a staple in the repertoire of the Bach Choir under David Willcocks),Lord of Light (1980), and A Ralegh Triptych (1992). His Te Deum (1975) was the result of a personal commission from HM Queen Elizabeth II for a work to mark the 500th anniversary of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

In 2011 Cannon donated his manuscripts and other archives to the Bodleian Library at Oxford; to mark this, the composer's Te Deum was sung at Christ Church Cathedral.

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