Having sung as a boy in Peterborough Cathedral and then as un undergraduate at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he studied Classics, Richard Hillier came to Durham in 1982 to study for a PGCE (doing his teaching practice at Durham School) and then a PhD, whilst singing as a lay clerk in the cathedral, where he married Elaine in 1984. Richard taught Classics at Durham School from 1987 to 1991, when, on his appointment as Head of Classics, Richard and Elaine moved with their two young sons to Repton School, subsequently becoming Housemaster of Latham House in 1997. When not teaching Classics, housemastering, or continuing to sing on a semi-professional basis, Richard spent much of his time teaching singing or producing drama, directing a total of six plays and musicals at Durham and seventeen at Repton. In 2006 Richard was appointed Headmaster of The Oratory Preparatory School in Oxfordshire and in 2010 became Headmaster of The Yehudi Menuhin School, an independent specialist music school, supported by the Department for Education through the Music and Dance Scheme, in which capacity he also served as Chair of the Music and Dance Scheme Schools. Richard now spends much of his time engaged in academic research, in particular into Late-Antique Latin literature.
