Opera Scotland

Philip Ledger Suggest updates

Sir Philip Stevens Ledger.

Born Sussex, 12 December 1937.

Died Cambridge, 18 November 2012.

English conductor, organist and teacher.

Made CBE (1985) and knighted in 1999, he was awarded honorary doctorates from RSAMD and several universities, including Glasgow, Strathclyde and St Andrews.

Philip Ledger's major contribution to musical life in Scotland was the twenty year period he spent from 1982 to 2001, as Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Before that, as a close associate of Britten and Pears, he wss an important figure as co-director of the Aldeburgh Festival, working frequently with the English Opera Group. He also played an influential role in church and otgan music, particularly in Cambridge.