Richard Hickox

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Richard Hickox, CBE (born March 5 1948) is an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. He was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe from 1966 to 1967 he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, then was a scholar of organ at Queens' College, Cambridge from 1967 to 1970. He has founded two orchestras - the City of London Sinfonia in 1971, whose music director he has been since then, and the Richard Hickox Singers & Orchestra in the same year. In addition, in 1990 he co-founded Collegium Musicum 90 with Simon Standage.

Richard Hickox is currently principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, although his term there ends as of 2006, when he will be succeeded by Thierry Fischer. He became the Music Director of Opera Australia in 2005. He is also chief conductor of the London Symphony Chorus, with whom he premiered The Three Kings by Peter Maxwell Davies in 1995. He also premiered that composer's A Dance on the Hill in 2005.

Hickox was awarded a CBE in the Honours List in 2002.

His recording repertoire has concentrated on British music, in which he has made a number of recording premieres, mostly for Chandos Records with whom he now has an exclusive contract.