Richard Sidney Hickox CBE (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.

[5] In 1972, aged 24, he was appointed Martin Neary's successor as organist and master of music at St. Margaret's, Westminster (the church of the Houses of Parliament), subsequently adding the directorships of the London Symphony Chorus (1976) and Bradford Festival Choral Society (1978).

In this role he conducted the Australian premieres of The Love for Three Oranges, Rusalka, and Arabella (which won the prestigious Helpmann Award for Best Opera in 2008).

CD recordings of The Love for Three Oranges and Rusalka were released by Chandos and received positive reviews in the international and local press.

Hickox also led major revivals, including Tannhäuser, Death in Venice, Giulio Cesare, Billy Budd, and Janáček's The Makropulos Affair.

He garnered five Gramophone Awards: for recordings of Britten's War Requiem (1992); Frederick Delius's Sea Drift (1994); William Walton's Troilus and Cressida (1995); the original 1913 version of Ralph Vaughan Williams' A London Symphony (2001 Record of the Year and Best Orchestral Disc); and Charles Villiers Stanford's Songs of the Sea (2006 Editor's Choice).

On 23 November 2008, during a recording session of Holst's First Choral Symphony for Chandos, Hickox was taken ill and died in Swansea[10] from a dissecting thoracic aneurysm.

[11][12] He had been scheduled to conduct a new production of Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea at English National Opera later that month.

[1] A memorial service was held at Queens' College, Cambridge, on 26 November 2008, with music conducted by Sir David Willcocks.