Cox, Noel –  An all round musician

Noel Cox OBE (1917-2005)

Noel Frederick Cox, musician was born in Grantham on Christmas Day in the final year of the First World War.

He was educated at King’s School Grantham and had private piano lessons before going on to the Royal Academy of Music in 1935, graduating as B.Mus., FRCO and LRAM and winning the Chappell Gold Medal for Piano and the Limpus Prize of the Royal College of Organists.

He became Director of Music, High Storrs Grammar School, Sheffield 1939-45, Oakham School 1945-48; Inspector of Music, City of Nottingham 1948-59.

He was appointed Professor for Harmony and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music 1961-73, Warden 1973-83

Noel  was a musician of extraordinary versatility and capacity for hard work, who devoted his life to musical education but was also active as a pianist, organist, bassoonist, conductor, composer, editor, arranger and – perhaps most successfully of all – as an adjudicator in Both UK and overseas, where his success and popularity ensured that he was always in great demand.

He played the bassoon in the Academy’s Senior Orchestra, trained by Sir Henry Wood, and in the London Senior Orchestra under Ernest Read.

He was awarded an OBE, for services to music, in 1985, and served as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music for 45 years including assignments in Canada, Africa, Trinidad and the Far East.

Although Noel Cox was best known as a choral conductor, he was also fully conversant with orchestral technique and, when he went to Nottingham, became trainer (and, in the concerts, bassoonist) of the orchestra of the Nottingham Harmonic Society.

He did not forget his bassoon playing and, for the Associated Board, edited New Pieces for Bassoon and composed two of the items in that collection, as well as composing and arranging music for wind ensembles. In 1975, 1976 and 1982 he adjudicated at the National Brass Band Championships.

As well as his work as an executant, he was chairman of the Essex Music Association and of the Council of the Ernest Read Music Association; he was a Vice-President of the Royal Choral Society, the British Federation of Festivals and served on the council of the Royal Philharmonic Society, as well as being active in the Incorporated Society of Musicians.

He also served on the adjudication panel of the BBC’s ‘Let the People Sing’ competition and the National Festival of Music for Youth.

His wife Jean (Sleight – whom he married in 1941) was a fellow student at the Royal Academy of Music and two of his three children followed in his footsteps as professional musicians.

He died at Watford 19 July 2005.