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Neville Dilkes, founder of the English Sinfonia and champion of the neglected homegrown repertoire
Neville Dilkes, who has died aged 94, founded the Midlands-based English Sinfonia, one of the country's earliest established chamber orchestras; under his baton they gave countless well-received concerts around the country, toured the United States and made a handful of critically acclaimed recordings for EMI and other labels.
With his long flowing hair, airy gestures and authoritative presence on the podium, Dilkes exuded the confidence of a professional of long experience. He was able to attract to the orchestra high-calibre soloists including the pianist John Lill, the soprano Victoria de Los Angeles and the violinist Ruggiero Ricci.
Dilkes was drawn to English music, and alongside mainstays of the repertoire he championed neglected works by composers such as Arnold Bax, George Butterworth and Ernest John Moeran, to many of which he gave rare outings in the recording studio.
'Neville Dikes's interpretations are urgent, even thrustful,' a Gramophone critic wrote of his 1971 English Orchestral Music LP. 'And though no doubt some Butterworth devotees will prefer something more contemplative, I must say that this approach quickly had me sympathising.'
Neville Dilkes was born into a Baptist family in Derby on August 28 1930, the only child of Arthur Dilkes, a pattern maker in the local foundry, and Nellie, née Aston; both were keen amateur musicians. Neville took piano and organ lessons with paternal uncles. He was educated at Derby Central School and worked as a hospital clerk before National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps – which, while greatly detested, cured his childhood stammer.
He taught piano at Repton School and spent two years at teacher-training college in Birmingham before being appointed as music director of Corby Grammar School, where he started his first orchestra in 1957. His breakthrough came with a production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, which brought together several local musicians who formed the Kettering Symphony Orchestra under his baton.
Dilkes's approaches to national orchestras, however, fell on deaf ears. So in 1961 he started his own, the Midland Sinfonia, a professional ensemble supported by the Arts Council, local authorities and the Nottingham-based cigarette manufacturer John Player.
Granted a year's leave of absence from Corby School, he attended masterclasses with Adrian Boult at Bromley and in 1963 joined Netherlands Radio Union International Conductors' Course. Sir Malcolm Sargent selected him to receive the Watney-Sargent Award.
In February 1968 the Midland Sinfonia gave its first London concert, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and soon afterwards was renamed the English Sinfonia, though much of its work remained in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.
But in time Dilkes fell foul of his own board, which was largely made up of representatives from the orchestra's local authority funders. He left in the mid-1970s to conduct the Philomusica, which had emerged from the Boyd Neel Orchestra, where he proved just as invaluable to the pursuit of neglected British repertoire.
In 1995 Dilkes retired to southern France to pursue his passion for sailing; one of his yachts was named Moody Minx and another Foxy Lady. The music-making continued: he worked with local chamber groups, played organ in local churches and maintained the entente cordiale with an Anglo-French evening of carols every Christmas.
His exhaustive memoir, I Bought a Hall – a nod to the grandeur of Tixover Hall, which he bought in 1968, and Easton Hall, which was home a decade later – was published in 2021.
In 1953 Neville Dilkes married Pamela Walton, a teacher; she died in 1979. His second marriage, to Janet Wright, a violinist, was dissolved, and in 1986 he married Christine Allen, a teacher whom he had met while giving piano lessons at Stamford High School. She survives him, with three daughters from his first marriage; another daughter predeceased him.
Neville Dilkes, born August 28 1930, died May 10 2025
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