Simon Lindley, flamboyant organist and choirmaster of Leeds Minster and leader of St Peter's Singers

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13-03-2025

Simon Lindley, who has died aged 76, was a colourful and influential figure in Anglican music who spent more than 40 years as organist and choirmaster of Leeds Minister (formerly Leeds Parish Church) and director of St Peter's Singers, one of the country's leading chamber choirs; he was also city organist, drawing hundreds of office workers to his free Monday lunchtime concerts on the glorious Leeds Town Hall organ.
Blessed with a flamboyant and charismatic personality, Lindley produced dazzling results on any organ. He was known for his phenomenal work ethic, generosity of spirit and mischievous wit, often sprinkling waspish comments throughout his recitals. He was equally at home helping to wheel a piano between hostelries during the Leeds Pub Piano Competition or directing coach tours around the city's Festival of Music and Architecture.
Playing the organ, he explained, is a physical business: 'It's a little bit like boxing because you do a lot of movement over a small place,' he said, adding that if playing the piano was equivalent to riding a bicycle, playing the organ was akin to riding a penny farthing. 'It's a question of balance. You've got to be fairly fit. And you've got to be prepared to practise until it cannot possibly go wrong.'
Simon Geoffrey Lindley was born at Barnehurst, Kent, on October 10 1948, the son of the Rev Geoffrey Lindley, an Anglican vicar, and his wife Jeanne, an author and the daughter of Émile Cammaerts, the Belgian poet; his great-grandmother, Marie Brema, sang the Angel in the premiere of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius at the 1900 Birmingham Festival.
He sang under Bernard Rose at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and later became teenage organist of St Margaret's Church, Oxford, subsidised by regular 10 shilling notes from an aunt in Yorkshire. While studying organ with John Birch at the Royal College of Music in London he became a 'personal Polyfilla' at Westminster Cathedral, deputising at Thursday Mass, accompanying congregational hymns and singing with the professional choir.
After playing at several London churches he was appointed assistant to Peter Hurford at St Albans Abbey. During the city's organ festival he once spent an entertaining afternoon demonstrating the differences between several chamber organs erected for the occasion.
At 21 he delivered a stunning debut recital in Westminster Abbey and in 1975 gave a magisterial Proms broadcast of the Elgar Organ Sonata in the sweltering heat of the Royal Albert Hall. That year he joined Leeds Parish Church and shortly afterwards was additionally appointed city organist.
He lectured at Leeds Polytechnic (now Leeds Metropolitan University), was assistant music officer for the city council and conducted countless choirs, ranging from amateur groups to professional enterprises. He travelled widely as a soloist and produced an extensive discography including Khachaturian's Symphony No 3 'Simfoniya-poema', with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Although a reluctant composer, he claimed to have produced more Easter carol arrangements than any other British composer while his Ave Maria appears on the soprano Katherine Jenkins's 2008 album Sacred Arias.
Lindley retired from his official posts in 2016 but continued to make music in Yorkshire and beyond, conducting a powerful account of Bach's St John Passion at Leeds Minster on Good Friday 2019. He was also an enthusiastic participant in the Battle of the Organs, pitting organists from Leeds and Liverpool against each other.
Lindley was a sociable figure who at various times was chief guest conductor of the Yorkshire Evening Post Band, chorus master of Halifax Choral Society and the Leeds Philharmonic Society, and president of the Royal College of Organists. This left little time for family life and his marriage, in 1974, to Carel McMiram was dissolved. They had four children.
Simon Lindley, born October 10 1948, died February 25 2025
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