DH: Tell us about your education – did music play an important part in your earlier life?

LH: I was brought up in Walthamstow, north-east London. My father, who had left school at 14, was a remarkable man; an amateur football referee, a church organist, skilled artist, and businessman who rose from tea boy to CEO of a major telecommunications company over the course of a whole lifetime. I sang in his church choir from the age of eight.

He knew that a choir school education was an opportunity for a promising schoolboy, and we still have the correspondence between him and W S Lloyd Webber, director at All Saints, Margaret Street in London, where I was sent to be a chorister shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939. I loved singing, even though most of my wartime chorister life was spent singing treble in an Oxford Parish Church, without altos, tenors, and basses, owing to having been evacuated. It was still a very important contribution to my future life as a musician.

From that choir school, I won a music scholarship to The King’s School, Canterbury (several All Saints boys went to this school, reportedly the oldest establishment of its kind in the country). While there, for the first time, I had the opportunity to conduct a group of my fellow students in a house music competition. I decided, there and then, that choral conducting was going to be one of the most important elements in my future life.

From King’s Canterbury, I won an alto choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge (this same educational path served my two sons well – at St Paul’s Cathedral and New College, Oxford.)

DH: And your time at Cambridge – how much influence has it had on your professional life?

LH: Singing in King’s College Choir is obviously a life-enhancing experience. I think that both I, and my fellow choral scholar John Alldis (who, like me, became known as a choral conductor), learnt almost everything we needed to know about choral conducting and training. This included such things as vocal production and blend, breath control, intonation, and the ability to project the essential style of every work we sang or conducted. It was indeed a privilege to sing in four of the world-famous Festivals of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve and I had the additional honour of representing the King’s College Choir as an alto in the large body of singers assembled in Westminster Abbey to sing at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.

DH: Tell us about The Elizabethan Singers and The Louis Halsey Singers

LH: When I completed my four years in Cambridge and came to live in London. One of my main ambitions was to start a chamber choir of around 30 singers, and give a regular series of concerts, mainly by British composers of the 16th and 20th centuries. I had so much enjoyed singing music by William Byrd and his contemporaries under Boris Ord, that I wanted to go on exploring the sacred and secular repertoire of the English Renaissance period. And having experienced the music of contemporary composers such as Britten and Herbert Howells, I felt it would be exciting to explore the contemporary British choral scene. Because of this dual interest I decided to call my new choir The Elizabethan Singers, and I soon managed to form a suitable group around a nucleus of singers I had been working with at Cambridge. After many years I formed another choir with similar aims called the Louis Halsey Singers. My wife, Eve, whom I had met singing at Cambridge, was pivotal to all my work and she herself became an accomplished teacher of conducting, as well as an inspirational university lecturer.

DH: And you spent some time at the BBC?

LH: Yes. One other ambition I had was to join the BBC as a music producer. I felt that that would be an enjoyable and useful occupation. But I realised that I couldn’t just walk into a job like that. I would have to build up a career conducting concerts in halls and churches, creating a varied repertoire, to become a musician worthy of performing on the BBC and at leading music festivals, as well as becoming a recording artist. It took 10 years to persuade the BBC that I would be a suitable member of the music staff, but I eventually succeeded and spent nearly 20 years in the BBC working mostly for their overseas programme in the World Service.

DH: How did you find the American choral scene when you were at the University of Illinois?

LH: I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as director of choral activities to expand my experience working at a leading musical establishment with master’s and doctoral students. My time there became a very fruitful experience. The university had the most amazing facilities and the young graduates I worked with were obviously high-class musicians destined for top jobs in the American music scene. But after three years I knew I wanted to return to London, where I was able to continue expanding my music experience by teaching at university colleges taking part in choral workshops, and becoming an examiner for the Associated Board (this took me not only all over Britain but also to such overseas places as Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore). And although I did continue working with choirs it was on a lesser scale than with my Elizabethan Singers and Louis Halsey Singers and meant that I had more time to devote to composing and arranging.

DH: I’d love to hear more about the composing and arranging side of your life

LH: I became particularly interested in carols after I had been invited by the publishers Novello to co-edit with Basil Ramsey a new carol book called Sing Nowell: 51 Carols by Contemporary British Composers. When I’m asked who my favourite composer is I reply, ‘the one whose music I am listening to’, and the same answer to ‘what’s your favourite piece of music’. But of course, I love the finest music from each of the periods of music. I have already mentioned that the music of the Renaissance is dear to me, and there are several composers I am especially fond of – Tallis Byrd, Tomkins, Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria, Schütz, Purcell, Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Britten and of course Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms.

One of the great privileges of my life has been working with many leading performers and also with many of the leading composers of our time – Benjamin Britten, whom I met at the Aldeburgh Festival, Vaughan Willams at his 85th (and last) birthday concert – my choir sang works especially written for the occasion by Rubbra, Howells and Anthony Milner, John Tavener, Jonathan Harvey, Bernard Taylor, John Gardner and many others. I was introduced to and shook hands with Stravinsky, who attended my choir’s performance of his Mass; and I became friends with Andrzej Panufnik involving the Louis Halsey Singers and was conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

DH: Thank you Louis for such an enlightening insight into your career in music

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Choir & Organ magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today