The Three Choirs Festival was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of conductor Richard Hickox, who was a frequent visitor to the festival over the years. Beloved of choruses and audiences alike, his performances at recent festivals have been memorable, and he will be sorely missed, by us and by the many around the world who have been touched by his contribution to the musical life of recent decades.

Some tributes from the Festival:

Everybody in the musical world is deeply shocked by the sudden death of Richard Hickox, who was one of the U.K.’s most loved and respected conductors. We should all grieve, and, particularly, remember the pain of his wife, Pamela, and his three children, Tom, Adam and Abigail.

Many moving obituaries have already appeared in the national and international press, so forgive me if I jot down a few personal thoughts.

Richard was one of the most committed and energetic musicians of the past fifty years. The scale of his achievement is truly colossal: he made hundreds of recordings, and conducted probably thousands of concerts. But, like many people, I will also remember Richard for his friendship, his generosity, his humour, his humility and his enthusiasm.

I was with him in Swansea on Sunday, when he became ill, and was able to speak with him that evening, after he had been discharged from hospital. He died a couple of hours later.

A phone message I had from him earlier that day summed up Richard for me. He phoned while I was in morning service to discuss aspects of the Holst Choral Symphony which we were to record later that day. His first words were “Hiya, Adrian, I’m so sorry to hear about your toothache, how horrible for you”, before he went on to discuss the day’s plans. In other words he always put people before music. Every singer and player who has worked with him would say the same. I will keep that phone message for many years! Richard’s consideration, wit and professional focus are all apparent in a few direct sentences.

I have known Richard for over twenty years, and for much of that time we were close professional colleagues. We were appointed to our respective posts at BBC Wales at the same time back in 1999-Richard as Chief Conductor, and I as Chorus Master. During Richard’s time there we collaborated on dozens of recordings and concerts Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Tippett, Stanford, Holst, Britten, of course; but also Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Janacek Saint Saens, Berlioz, Rousell, Verdi and so on .I am proud to have directed the National Chorus of Wales in so many of Richard’s recordings, one of which; Leighton’s Second Symphony and Te Deum has just come out to fantastic reviews.

Richard had too many talents to list in a few short paragraphs. However, like all great men, he offered many different things to many different people. Professionally, what impressed me most about Richard was his infallible management of time in rehearsals, the speed with which he absorbed new scores, his instincts in the recording studio, his patience at moments of tension, and, of course, his ability to bring off superb performances, even when the preliminary rehearsals had not promised much.

I am so sorry that Richard died before receiving a Knighthood, which was surely imminent, and also, that he was, through his death, not able to fulfil an ambition of his which he mentioned again to me on Sunday afternoon. That ambition? To conduct Evensong in Gloucester Cathedral, with some “big, romantic” music on the menu. I am so sad that we have all been robbed of this wonderful man, who was in his prime, and that there will be no more of what he described in his last treasured phone message to me as “our lovely collaborations”.

Adrian Partington (Artistic Director,  Gloucester Three Choirs Festival)

We are all shocked by the news of the sudden death of Richard Hickox at the weekend and our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.

Whilst he may be thought of by Three Choirs audiences as first and foremost an indefatigable champion of the English choral tradition and British music in general (which he was), he also displayed the full cosmopolitan breadth of his musical talents in what were sadly to become his last performances at the festival, at Hereford in 2006. As well as a stunning performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony, his orchestral programme with the Philharmonia Orchestra included Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto with soloist Steven Isserlis, and a suite from Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. The previous night he had conducted the Philharmonia and the Festival Chorus in a memorable performance of Schumann’s little-known work Das Paradies und die Peri. When he came up to Hereford in the June previous to the festival to rehearse the chorus, it was a huge pleasure to see him work with them. He was meticulously organised and it was clear that he knew the score inside out and exactly what he wanted from the singers. Despite being in the middle of a hectic rehearsal schedule for other projects, and travelling up from London and back in a day, his energy and enthusiasm that day was something to behold. They loved him.

Geraint Bowen (Artistic Director, Hereford Three Choirs Festival)

The news about Richard Hickox was a huge shock; as well as the great loss to British music, I feel that I have lost a friend who has been taken out of turn. The first time that I met him was at the Gloucester TCF in 1992. John Sanders, in his last year as Artistic Director of the Festival, had invited Richard to conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert that included a rare performance of Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto of 1987, in which the soloist was Thomas Trotter.

The concert began with a dazzling performance of Elgar's Overture In the South (Alassio), leaving no doubt in the mind that Richard was a fine Elgarian, and ended with a powerful performance of Mahler's magnificent Fourth Symphony. The Berkeley work opens with three unaccompanied trumpets, and the composer has suggested that their 'phrases...should sound processional - as though bringing light to the orchestra, which flickers and catches fire'. On this occasion the processional was actual rather than theoretical: the trumpeters, one in each aisle of the nave, paced steadily forward as they played, their attention fully concentrated on the music clipped to their instruments. What had not been forseen was that an elderly golden labrador guide dog accompanying his partially-sighted master, was stretched out silently in the south aisle. I think that the dog's name was Archie. Inevitably, neither dog nor trumpeter were aware of each other's presence, and at the point of collision, close to the front of the nave, a polished shoe scrunched heavily upon an outstretched paw. However, such was the the discipline of both protagonists that the player's performance was unmarred, the dog, far from howling, raised not a whimper, and Richard continued to conduct, apparently unaware of a potential mishap spotted by many in the audience, including Michael Berkeley! Naturally, after the performance, news of this happening spread rapidly around the cathedral and the festival club, and many people came up to tell me that the labrador was an absolute hero. The next day, I ascertained that the dog's master would again be in the same seat at the evening concert and so, before John Sanders mounted the rostrum to conduct the Bach Mass in B minor, I went down the south aisle and presented the canine hero with a 'medal' and a certificate: 'Awarded to Archie for pawbearance in the face of oncoming cornet-players'. When I met Michael Berkeley and Richard at a party a couple of years ago, Michael told me that he had dined out on that story ever since.

In 1995, David Briggs took up the post of Artistic Director of the Gloucester TCF. This was the first year in which we introduced arena-style tiered seating into the cathedral, a change that David welcomed, especially for the great resultant improvement in the acoustics, and he also agreed that Richard Hickox should be invited to conduct at three concerts, all three with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The first of these, on Wednesday evening, featured the world première of Paul Patterson's Overture 'Songs of the West'; an hypnotically beautiful performance of the Delius Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little, the ideal soloist; and a revelatory reading of the 'Sinfonia Antartica' by Vaughan Williams.

The Thursday evening concert featured an unforgettable performance of Elgar's 'The Apostles' and, even though the Festival finances were stretched to the limit, I was determined that we should provide Richard with the finest line-up of soloists that we could afford. All were excellent and the Festival Chorus were outstanding. I believe that the bass who sings the role of Judas is central to the success of a performance of this work. Richard had recorded 'The Apostles' in 1990, casting Robert Lloyd as Judas, a role ideally suited to his magnificent operatic basso, and so it was with both pride and relief that I received the news that Lloyd had agreed to come to Gloucester. Richard conducted an unforgettable performance of 'The Apostles' that night, and among the many letters that we received about it was one from a regular patron from the USA, the late Harold Carter, who wrote that in a lifetime of concert-going, 'I will take the memory of that performance of 'The Apostles' to my grave'. My own sentiments entirely.

On the Friday evening in 1995, Richard shared the bill with David Briggs and Roy Massey, conducting the first UK performance of 'The Legend of King Arthur' by American composer Elinor Remick Warren. This large-scale romantic work, styled as 'A Choral symphony', and based upon Tennyson's 'Morte d'Arthur', had received its first performance in 1940 in the USA under the baton of Albert Coates, and had been recorded in 1990 with the baritone Thomas Hampson in the title role. Richard had not heard of Elinor Remick Warren but, on seeing the score, took a great interest in the piece and wished to include it in the programme of the 1995 St Endellion Festival. However, as this preceded the TCF, I told him that Gloucester very much wished to retain the right to give the first performance of such a rarity. Richard accepted this without argument, and the performance in Gloucester, attended by many American enthusiasts, received a standing ovation. Thomas Hampson was not available, so the Canadian bass-baritone Nathan Berg was chosen to sing the title role, with tenor Nathan Vale as Sir Bedivere. When I spoke to an enthusiastic and happy Nathan Vale after the performance he simply said 'I just love that role!'

The plan for 1998, my last year as Festival Administrator, also included three appearances by Richard. Unfortunately, other commitments prevented him from conducting a performance of 'The Damnation of Faust' by Berlioz on the Thursday evening, but David Briggs nobly stepped into the breach and saved the day. However, Richard directed two outstanding concerts, one on Wednesday and the other on Friday. By this time, we had decided to engage the Philharmonia Orchestra for the whole festival week, as opposed to dividing the week between two separate orchestras as before. The first of Richard's concerts included the Brahms's 'Tragic Overture'; Elgar's Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little as soloist once again; and a thrilling performance of the rarely-performed Symphony No 4 in E minor by Sir Hubert Parry. It was wonderful to hear this fine symphony in Gloucester, Parry's home city, and to hear it interpreted so superbly by Richard. As one critic so rightly expressed it, 'we English must be MAD, if this work had been written by a composer of any other nationality than ours, it would be heard regularly in our concert halls'.

Under the leadership of our new chairman, Martin Lee-Browne, the trend to bold innovation continued in 1998, not least with the inclusion of an awesome performance under Richard's baton of the First Act of Wagner's 'Parsifal'. This was a huge undertaking artistically and a big gamble financially. It is hard to believe that we would have contemplated facing such a challenge if we had not been able to rely upon the immense skill and inspirational enthusiasm of Richard Hickox. As it was, the result was profoundly satisfying. As the critic Michael White put it, writing in The Independent on Sunday, 'I was impressed -  by this ['Parsifal'] and by my whole Three Choirs experience. The Festival may not be what it was; but with strong programmes, well-delivered, it's considerably more than the emporium of English Pastoral memories that critics claim. Consider me a convert'.

Anthony Boden (Festival Secretary of Gloucester Three Choirs, 1992-1998)