CURRICULUM VITAE
Leonard Sanderman (*1991) is an Associate Professor at Leeds Conservatoire, and teaches organ at the University of York. He serves as Director of Music in the parish of St Peter & St Leonard, Horbury with St John, Horbury Bridge. He acts as independent organ consultant and as organ advisor to the Church of England in the Diocese of Leeds.
Leonard studied Music at the University of Oxford and completed a master’s degree in English Church Music at the University of York with high distinction. He completed an AHRC-funded PhD in Music on issues in the historiography and canonisation of liturgical music in high church parishes between 1827 and 1914. In 2018, he led an international team of researchers and musicians which transcribed, published, and recorded the complete sacred music of Alice Mary Smith, one of England's foremost women composers of the nineteenth century. In 2019, he was awarded a British Research Council Fellowship at the Library of Congress. In 2023, he held a postdoctoral Fellowship with the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at the University of York, focusing on historical organ restoration.
He was initially taught the organ by his father, and later by Sietze de Vries, Ben van Oosten, Clive Driskill-Smith, Steven Grahl, and Ronny Krippner. He was Organ Scholar at Cheltenham College, Keble College, Oxford and Chichester Cathedral. From 2014-2018, he worked as Director of Music at St Wilfrid, Harrogate. Leonard is a prize-winning, commissioned composer, and contributed significantly to the Dutch Hymnal of 2013.
He is internationally active as organist, regularly touring in Germany, The Netherlands, and the United States. He appeared live on BBC3 and features on various recordings, including his first solo organ CD from 2018, an album as choral conductor in 2019, and a second solo organ disc with music for Advent and Christmas on the German label Harp in 2020. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Organists.
He is a published author on church music and the organ. He sits on the council of the British Institute of Organ Studies, and is the current President of the York & District Organists’ Association.
In his spare time, he is a keen woodworker, and loves to cook.
