Alexander L’Estrange (b.1974) is an award-winning British composer, arranger, jazz musician and choral animateur of international acclaim. A Master of Arts graduate of Oxford University, he has been dubbed “the added 9th of choral music” due to his consummate fusion of the English choral tradition with jazz.
L’Estrange is best known for his popular series of 40-minute choral works for SATB choir, unison children and jazz quintet which began with Zimbe! Come, sing the songs of Africa!. The piece took the choral world by storm, firmly establishing L’Estrange as one of the most popular choral composers of our age; Zimbe!’s 10th anniversary concert, conducted by the composer, took place at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
The most recent work in the series, Freedom! The Power of Song, was written in collaboration with his wife, composer and lyricist Joanna Forbes L’Estrange. L’Estrange’s sacred anthems are recorded by the award-winning chamber choir Tenebrae on their On Eagles’ Wings album. His secular songs include Love’s Philosophy, setting Shelley, Tennyson and Byron, and Winter Songs, another collaboration with Joanna. Alexander L'Estrange is the go-to arranger for world-class vocal groups including The King’s Singers and has written hundreds of arrangements of songs from across the musical spectrum for Faber Music’s Choral Basics series.
