Background
He was born in London, and educated at Westminster School and the Royal College of Music.
composer conductor choir director
He was born in London, and educated at Westminster School and the Royal College of Music.
Royal College of Music.
During the 1920s, he was organist at several London churches. In 1928, he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 1934, was appointed British Broadcasting Corporation Chorus Master, taking responsibility for the British Broadcasting Corporation Chorus, the British Broadcasting Corporation"s large amateur chorus, and the Wireless Chorus and Wireless Singers, made up of professionals.
That same year, he conducted the world and broadcast premiere of A Boy Was Born by Benjamin Britten. During the 1930s, he was Musical Director of the London and North Eastern Railway Musical Society: it comprised several amateur male-voice choirs which combined annually for a performance in London.
He wrote music for them.
He was director of the Kentucky Minstrels, a popular singing group on British Broadcasting Corporation radio during and immediately after the War. In 1946, he conducted the Wireless Chorus at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert in William Walton"s Where Does the Uttered Music Go? He was awarded the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1959. He died in 1961, at the age of 61.
Most of his compositions were choral works, but he sometimes wrote for instrumental and orchestral forces.
He was an enthusiastic promoter of both amateur and professional singing: his Penguin Song Book of 1951 appears to have been the first musical score published by Penguin Books, and was directed at amateur singers.