RPS Richard Hickox Award
A special presentation was made during the Royal Philharmonic Music Awards to honour the conductor, Richard Hickox, who died unexpectedly in 2008.
Royal Philharmonic Society Chairman, Graham Sheffield, announced that in future the Award will be known as the RPS Richard Hickox Award and will be presented at the discretion of the Society for services to British Music.
The citation was read by Sir Charles Mackerras who made the presentation to Richard Hickox's wife, mezzo soprano Pamela Helen Stephen:
"Whether you worked with Richard Hickox, or came to know him through hearing his performances and recordings, the same qualities shone through: his passion, warmth, generosity, enthusiasm, commitment, ability to inspire, his indefatigable energy and, above all his quintessential humanity. While his repertoire ranged from baroque to contemporary, at the heart of it lay his championing, both at home and abroad, of British Music from the last 100 years.
The list of composers is remarkable. Not only Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Walton, Holst, Tippett and Britten; but Alwyn, Arnold, Bliss, Bridge, Butterworth, Delius, Dyson, Finzi, Goossens, Howells. The list goes on: Leighton, Parry, Rubbra, Stanford. Then there are the Berkeleys - Lennox and Michael -, Minna Keal, Colin Matthews, Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Nyman and Nigel Osborne. How fortunate we are that he left the most extraordinary recorded legacy – over 300 recordings in total - an astonishing 280 of these made in the last 20 years for Chandos.
In honouring Richard with this special Royal Philharmonic Society award for his services to British Music we acknowledge not only his personal commitment to this repertoire but we also extend his legacy just a little further. In future the RPS Richard Hickox Award will be given, at the discretion of the Society, to those who share his vision and conviction."