Meredith Davies

(Albert) Meredith Davies CBE (30 July 1922 - 9 March 2005) was a British conductor, renowned for his advocacy of English music by composers such as Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

His co-conducting, with the composer, of the premiere of Britten’s War Requiem, at the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral on 30 May 1962, is generally regarded as one of the highlights of British 20th-century choral music.

Meredith Davies was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the second son of a clergyman. At the age of seven he became a junior exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music in London, as a cellist. He went to the Stationers' Company's School, North London. He soon showed an interest in the organ, and was taken as a pupil by George Thalben-Ball.

At age 17 he served as organist at Hurstpierpoint College for a year, before being elected in 1940 as organ scholar of Keble College, Oxford. Studies for his philosophy, politics and economics degree were interrupted by war service with the Royal Artillery, 1942–45. After demobilisation, in 1947 he took up the first of his two cathedral appointments, as organist and Master of the Choristers at St Albans.

He moved to Hereford Cathedral in 1949 as organist and choirmaster, in succession to Sir Percy Hull, staying there until 1956. This entailed being conductor of the Three Choirs Festival in 1952 and 1955. His performances at the festival included a memorable The Dream of Gerontius with an ailing Kathleen Ferrier. Having been encouraged by Sir Adrian Boult to become a full-time conductor, he went to the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome in 1954 and 1956 to study conducting with Fernando Previtali. He returned to Oxford in 1956, to spend three years as organist and supernumerary fellow of New College, Oxford.

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