Leslie Woodgate

Hubert Leslie Woodgate OBE (15 April 1900 – 18 May 1961) was an English choral conductor, composer, and writer of books on choral music. Order of the British Empire in 1959. He was born in London. In 1928, he joined the BBC; in 1934, was appointed BBC Chorus Master, taking responsibility for the BBC Chorus, the BBC's large amateur chorus, and the Wireless Chorus and Wireless Singers, made up of professionals (see BBC Chorus and [a705201]). That same year, he conducted the world and broadcast premiere of A Boy Was Born by Benjamin Britten. During the 1930s, he was Musical Director of the London and North Eastern Railway Musical Society. He was director of the [a2519764], a popular singing group on BBC radio during and immediately after the War. In 1946, he conducted the Wireless Chorus at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert in William Walton's Where Does the Uttered Music Go? Most of his compositions were choral works, but he sometimes wrote for instrumental and orchestral forces. His Op. 1, Hymn to the Virgin and The White Island for male soloist, male choir and orchestra, earned him a Carnegie Prize in 1923. He was an enthusiastic promoter of both amateur and professional singing: his Penguin Song Book of 1951 appears to have been the first musical score published by Penguin Books, and was directed at amateur singers.