Ronald Corp, who has died aged 74, made an indelible mark on the British music scene, particularly in his work with choral singers. Having founded the New London Orchestra in 1988, he went on to establish and conduct its children’s choir, as well as directing the London Chorus (previously the London Choral Society) and Highgate Choral Society, bringing together singers of all ages and abilities. A prolific composer, especially of choral pieces and songs, he wrote in an engaging style that delighted performers and audiences alike. His works in all genres were well crafted, often characterised by lively, syncopated rhythms and abundant melodic appeal.
In 1996 he launched a series of recordings of Light Music Classics (four of British music, one of European and one of American) with his New London Orchestra. The British discs featured the signature tunes to such classic radio and television programmes as The Archers, Music While You Work, Dr Finlay’s Casebook and Desert Island Discs, with scores by Eric Coates, Ronald Binge and many others. His own music, though similarly easy on the ear, was generally more serious in tone, owing much to the English choral tradition; it was also mildly dissonant, with Benjamin Britten, Holstian bitonality and Martinů among the notable influences.
Corp’s aim in founding the New London Children’s Choir was to involve children in the performance of music both traditional and contemporary. To that end, he both commissioned pieces by such composers as Michael Nyman and Louis Andriessen (both patrons of the choir) and wrote many himself. The choir made multiple appearances at the BBC Proms and at other venues, as well as recording for film and television.
Born in Wells, Somerset, the son of Geoffrey, a municipal gardener, and an amateur pianist and piano accordionist, and his wife, Elsie (nee Kinchin), Ronald began composing even before he learned to play the piano, using his own notation to remind himself of his intentions. After studying music at Oxford University, where Simon Preston was an important mentor, he worked for the BBC in London as a librarian, producer and presenter (1973–87).
In 1999 he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England, serving as a non-stipendiary minister successively at St Mary’s Kilburn, St Mary’s Hendon and St Alban the Martyr, Holborn. A considerable proportion of his vocal works are settings of sacred texts or works by such poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins (Laudamus), George Herbert (Mary’s Song), Francis Thompson (The Hound of Heaven) or John Ruskin (Nothing Can be Beautiful Which is Not True), reflecting his religious and ethical approach to life. Despite his calling, he did not restrict himself to Christian texts. Adonai Echad (2000), for soloists, choruses and orchestra, juxtaposes texts from the Jewish and Christian faiths, including psalms, prayers and poems.
His orchestral compositions included four symphonies, two piano concertos and concertos for flute, recorder and cello. The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), drawing on melodic fragments from that composer’s music, was composed for Help Musicians UK and premiered at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in 2011. It may be performed either by 16 solo singers (as at the premiere), or chorus and orchestra. Another piece for chorus and orchestra, This Sceptr’d Isle, was given its premiere at the Barbican the following year in a concert with the Highgate Choral Society, marking the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
And All the Trumpets Sounded, given its premiere in 1989 by the Highgate Choral Society, which commissioned it, was considered by Corp his first important composition. Referencing Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem and Britten’s War Requiem, both of which he hugely admired, the work similarly features poems of the first world war, the requiem sequence and the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Other substantial choral works with orchestra included Behold the Sea (2016), again commissioned by the Highgate Choral Society.
Among his smaller-scale works were Dover Beach, commissioned by the BBC Singers, and a setting of Dante for the ensemble Gesualdo Six. His operas included The Pelican, based on the play by Strindberg; Wenceslas, a Christmas opera for children; and The Ice Mountain, also for children.
Letters from Lony (2017) was a setting of letters from a Jewish woman in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, Leonie (Lony) Fraenkel, to her infant grandson, Peter Lobbenberg, unfolding a story of the writer’s removal from her home to the Westerbork transit camp, to Theresienstadt and thence to Auschwitz. Scored for mezzo-soprano, piano and string quartet, the work is essentially conversational – there are mentions of the ping-pong club upstairs and a bathtub crocodile that squirts water – though Corp succeeded in darkening the tone in a series of four interludes. It is due to be heard at the Three Choirs festival this August.
He was a voracious reader, not least of poetry, and his songs include sets devoted to the verse of individual poets, among them Walt Whitman, Francis Thompson, Robert Browning, AE Housman, WB Yeats and William Blake. As in his choral works, Corp displayed a mastery of word-setting: his compositions were unfailingly pleasing to sing.
Some of Corp’s finest music is contained in the symphonies: the First, with its opening bold brass sonorities presaging powerful harmonic plunges later; the darker, serious-minded Second and Third; and the Fourth commissioned for the chamber forces of the Echo Ensemble. The Cello Concerto, with its movingly elegiac slow movement, and the First Piano Concerto are also worthy of special note.
Releases on CD included The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; three string quartets, a clarinet quintet (“Crawhall”) and the dramatic scena The Yellow Wallpaper, adapted from the short story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. His recordings of music by other composers included, in addition to the light music series, Rutland Boughton’s opera The Queen of Cornwall, and works by John Foulds, Arthur Sullivan (Corp was vice-president of the Sullivan Society), Satie, Poulenc, Prokofiev and Grazyna Bacewicz. His orchestrations of Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes featured in the film Chocolat (2000), starring Juliet Binoche.
Corp believed strongly in the spiritual power of music. Inspired by his religious faith, a thirst for life and a sense of the act of creation as a voyage of discovery, he used to say that “a day without writing is a day wasted”. In public and private, he was a warm-hearted, sympathetic man, who wanted his music to be useful to society.
He is survived by his civil partner, John Glass, sister, Pauline, and brother, Robert.
• Ronald Geoffrey Corp, composer, conductor and priest, born 4 January 1951; died 7 May 2025
