25 Facts About Richard Hickox

Richard Sidney Hickox was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.

In 1967, while his father was Vicar of Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, Richard Hickox founded the Wooburn Festival and eventually became its president.

Richard Hickox founded the Wooburn Singers and continued as conductor until succeeded by Stephen Jackson.

From 1970 to 1971 Richard Hickox was Director of Music at Maidenhead Grammar School.

Richard Hickox founded the City of London Sinfonia in 1971, remaining music director until his death, and founded the Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra in the same year.

The Richard Hickox Singers are featured on Kate Bush's album Hounds of Love on the song "Hello Earth"; the choral section is the Georgian folk song "Tsintskaro".

Richard Hickox was the St Endellion Festivals Artistic Director from 1972 until his death in 2008.

Richard Hickox' son Adam Richard Hickox is a conductor for the St Endellion Easter Festival for 2024.

Richard Hickox was Associate Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1985 until his death.

Richard Hickox was Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus from 1976 to 1991, with whom he premiered The Three Kings by Peter Maxwell Davies in 1995.

Richard Hickox premiered A Dance on the Hill in 2005, by the same composer.

For five years, Richard Hickox was Music Director of the Spoleto Festival, Italy.

Richard Hickox became Music Director of Opera Australia in 2005.

Richard Hickox collaborated on new productions of The Tales of Hoffmann and Alcina.

Richard Hickox led major revivals, including Tannhauser, Death in Venice, Giulio Cesare, Billy Budd, and Janacek's The Makropulos Affair.

Richard Hickox was contracted as Opera Australia's music director through to 2012 at the time of his death in November 2008.

Richard Hickox was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Richard Hickox's recording repertoire concentrated on British music, in which he made a number of recording premieres for Chandos Records.

Richard Hickox garnered five Gramophone Awards: for recordings of Britten's War Requiem ; Frederick Delius's Sea Drift ; William Walton's Troilus and Cressida ; the original 1913 version of Ralph Vaughan Williams' A London Symphony ; and Charles Villiers Stanford's Songs of the Sea.

Richard Hickox made only the second recording of Delius's Requiem.

Richard Hickox was awarded a Doctorate of Music from Durham University in 2003 and was an Honorary Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge.

Richard Hickox received two Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, the first Sir Charles Groves Award, the Evening Standard Opera Award and the Association of British Orchestras Award.

On 23 November 2008, during a recording session of Holst's First Choral Symphony for Chandos, Richard Hickox was taken ill and died in Swansea from a dissecting thoracic aneurysm.

Richard Hickox had been scheduled to conduct a new production of Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea at English National Opera later that month.

Brett Dean dedicated the fifth movement of his "Epitaph for string quintet " in memory of Richard Hickox who was the conductor of the premiere of Dean's first opera, "Bliss".