Tye, Christopher

English organist and church composer; born early in the Sixteenth Century at Westminster. He received the degree of Bachelor of Music from Cambridge in 1536 and of Doctor of Music in 1545 and the same degree ad eundum from Oxford three years later. From 1541 to 1562 he was organist at Ely Cathedral. He was in orders and held the rectories of Little Wilbraham, Newton and Doddington-cum-March. He was a chorister and for some time gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He translated into verse the first fourteen chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and set them to elaborate music, somewhat after the order of Sternhold's Psalms. He wrote a service in G minor and several masses and anthems, among them I Will Exalt Thee, O Lord. He was probably as good a musician as any in his time, and greatly improved the music of the English church, which was then at a low state.