Born in England in 1958, Philip Jakob has been active in liturgical music since 1973. He taught music in St Ignatius College (Jesuits) London before taking up the post of Director of Music for the Cathedral and Diocese of Hallam (South Yorkshire) in 1994. He has served on the Liturgy Commissions of Westminster and Hallam Dioceses and for many years was Secretary for the Northern Dioceses Liturgical Consultation UK. Philip studied organ with the virtuoso Stephen Hicks (England, Norway) and toured Europe as soloist and accompanist. In USA for four years he served as the first tutor for the Jesuit High School Organ Scholarship.

 

He moved to USA in 2014 to take up the Director of Music for St Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa. Since 2021 he has been Director of Music at Sacred Heart (Franciscans), Tampa.

 

Philip is a published composer and has been a Member of the Liturgical Composers’ Forum since 2017.

 

The Lyric Psalms of Philip Jakob

Philip has been settings psalms for decades. When the Abbey Psalter was published he immediately began work on them. The Cantors with whom he worked had become somewhat disenchanted with psalm-tone settings and were looking for a change and a challenge. For the last four years Philip has produced lyric settings of the Abbey texts for use in his parish. Initially he had to guess what the texts of the responses might be but when in May 2024 the Liturgy Office issued the revised texts he was only a few tweaks away from finished products.

 

Each psalm resource includes the following editions: Melody and Keyboard, Melody and Guitar, SATB Refrain, Instrumental in C and Bb.

 

The styles are varied across the three-year cycle, with memorable refrains and rich harmonic progressions.

 

More of Philip's Psalms for the Lectionary

You will also find Philip's music at:
• Decani Music
• Oregan Catholic Press
• Simply Liturgical Music