He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano.

Willan was born in England on 12 October 1880 and began musical training at age eight, with studies at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne.

[4] His notable pupils included pianists Howard Brown and Naomi Yanova, tenor Gordon Wry, and composers Cecil Gray, Patricia Blomfield Holt, Walter MacNutt, F. R. C. Clarke, Phyllis Gummer, Eldon Rathburn, Robert Fleming, and Kenneth Peacock.

In Britain, it was customary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to occasionally grant very distinguished English cathedral musicians the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus.

Willan, who would describe his provenance "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption",[citation needed] died on 16 February 1968 in Toronto.

[6] While serving as the organist and choirmaster at St. Paul's, Bloor Street, Willan became interested in the music of another Anglican parish, that of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

Willan composed some 800 musical pieces, the majority sacred works for choir such as anthems, hymns and mass settings.

[8] Willan is best known for his sacred choral and organ works, which show evidence of his love for plainsong and Renaissance music.

For example, many of his liturgical compositions employ western church modes from a thousand years ago and the modality and harmony of late nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox choral music.

His vocal lines are significantly more melismatic, his style more contrapuntal and rhythmically much freer than was the case in the liturgical music of his contemporaries.