Richard Kenneth Marlow is an English choral conductor and organist. He was Organ Scholar

Organ scholar

An organ scholar is a young musician employed as a part-time assistant organist at an institution where regular choral services are held. The idea of an organ scholarship is to provide the holder with playing, directing and administrative experience....

 and later Research Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge

Selwyn College, Cambridge

Selwyn College is a constituent college in the University of Cambridge in England, United Kingdom.The college was founded by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of the Rt Reverend George Selwyn , who rowed on the Cambridge crew in the first Varsity Boat Race in 1829, and went on to become the...

. He studied with Thurston Dart

Thurston Dart

Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....

, writing a doctoral dissertation on the 17th-century virginalist

Virginalist

Virginalist denotes a composer of the so-called virginalist school, and usually refers to the English keyboard composers of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. The term does not appear to have been applied earlier than the 19th century...

, Giles Farnaby

Giles Farnaby

Giles Farnaby was an English composer and virginalist of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.-Life:Giles Farnaby was born about 1563, perhaps in Truro, Cornwall, England or near London. His father, Thomas, was a Cittizen and Joyner of London, and Giles may have been related to Thomas Farnaby , the...

. After teaching at Southampton University he returned to Cambridge in 1968, succeeding Raymond Leppard

Raymond Leppard

Raymond "Def" Leppard, CBE is a British conductor and harpsichordist.He was born in London and grew up in Bath, where he was educated at the City of Bath Boys' School, now known as the Beechen Cliff School...

 as Fellow and Director of Music at Trinity and taking up a lectureship in the University Music Faculty.

The following year Richard Marlow founded the Cambridge University Chamber Choir, which won critical acclaim worldwide for its enterprising and stylish performances. He disbanded this group in 1989 to devote more time to the recently formed (1982) mixed choir of Trinity College, whose many broadcasts, recordings and foreign tours have established its reputation internationally.

In addition to his choral work and his teaching, Richard Marlow has been active as an editor and has contributed articles and reviews to various scholarly journals and books, including The New Grove Dictionary of Music

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...

 and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He has also conducted, lectured and given harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 and organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 recitals in many European countries as well as in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan and the USA. As organ soloist and choir director, he records frequently, most recently Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

 Organ Concerto

Organ concerto

An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolves in the 18th century, when composers including George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with...

 No. 14 with the Academy of Ancient Music

Academy of Ancient Music

The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after a previous organisation of the same name of the 18th century. The musicians play on either original instruments or modern copies of...

.

Richard Marlow retired from his post as Director of Music at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 in September 2006 and was succeeded in the post by Stephen Layton

Stephen Layton

Stephen Layton is an English conductor.Layton was raised in Derby, where his father was a church organist. Layton learned the piano as a youth. He was a chorister at Winchester Cathedral, and subsequently won scholarships to Eton College and then King's College, Cambridge as an organ...

. He remains, however, a Fellow of the College.