Masterly choral conductor, composer and organist passes at the ripe old age of 95.

The great British choral conductor, composer, organist and arranger Sir David Willcocks has died peacefully at home at the grand old age of 95 according to a statement issued by King’s College, Cambridge. Known affectionately as “England’s choir master,” Sir David was perhaps best known for his arrangements of Christmas carols, a large number of which were written for the famous Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s, and went on to appear in the Carols for Choirs series which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter.

A Cornishman, born in Newquay in 1919, Willcocks became a chorister at Westminster Abbey at the age of eight, where he recalled being conducted by Edward Elgar and other great conductors of the Edwardian generation. In 1939 he became an organ scholar at King’s College, but his academic career was interrupted by the outbreak of war. Willcocks won the Military Cross for his actions during the Battle of Normandy before returning to Cambridge and beginning the lifelong relationship with the choir that came to symbolise the ‘English choral sound’ of the 1950s-1970s. He became a...