The conductor of the Nine Lessons and Carols (December 24^th), he composed the descants and arrangements of several carols which have become standard at many such services. He published these in the five volume series ‘Carols for Choirs’ which he edited with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter.

Trained as a chorister at Westminster Abbey (1929 – 1934) and then educated at Clifton College (attended in an earlier generation by by Sir Arthur Quiller – Couch, May 12^th) where he had been awarded a music scholarship, he became the organ scholar at King’s and was later the Headmaster of King’s College School, the school attended by the King’s choirboys.

Willcocks served with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in World War II and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his actions during the Battle of Normandy (D-Day) in 1944.

Demobbed in 1945, he went to study at Cambridge in 1945 and was, in 1947, elected a Fellow of King’s. He was also appointed to be Conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society as well as being appointed to be the organist at Salisbury Cathedral and as the conductor of the Salisbury Musical Society.

Between 1950 and 1957 he was the organist of Worcester Cathedral, the principal conductor of the Three Choirs Festival (1951, 1954, 1957), and conducted the City of Birmingham Choir. In 1956, he was also appointed conductor of the Bradford Festival Choral Society, a role he fulfilled until 1974.

Through this extraordinary range of roles he worked closely with the world famous composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and Sir Michael Tippett. As Director of Music at King’s (1957 – 1974) he made numerous recordings with the choir including Thomas Tallis’ ‘Spem in alium’ (1965) and he conducted the Cambridge University Musical Society’s performance of Britten’s War Requiem in Milan, La Scala and Venice in 1963.

Appointed Director of the Royal College of Music in 1971, he also became President of the City of Bath Bach Choir and Exeter Festival Chorus and, in 1981, he was the director of music for the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Knighted in 1977 and having become the recipient of at least fifty honorary degrees from institutions across the world, he resumed editing scores and conducting when he retired from the Royal College.

In retirement, however, he did not exactly slow down, travelling to America nine times in 1989 to conduct Evensong at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church and to also conduct the renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He died at the age of 94 on September 17^th, 2015 with a worldwide reputation and a catalogue of recordings too large to even begin listing.