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Leo Sowerby lived most of his life in Chicago as organist/choirmaster of St. James Episcopal Cathedral (1927–62). He was de facto composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony (ca. 1917–1942). Sowerby was student of Calvin Lampert, Arthur Olaf Andersen and Percy Grainger. He was also the first recipient of the American Prix de Rome for music (1921-24); 1946 Pulitzer Prize (for the Canticle of the Sun, chorus and orchestra), and the first American Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music, London (1963), and founding director of the College of Church Musicians at Washington (National) Cathedral (1962–68). Sowerby left 550 compositions in every medium except opera. Most are available through the Theodore Presser Co.

• The Sowerby Foundation does not yet have a web page, but there is a fine extended essay on Sowerby ("Sowerby at 100") on the web page of the New England Organist Magazine.