Maurice Handford (1929 – 1986) was a British horn player and conductor. He was principal horn of the Hallé Orchestra 1949–61, then associate conductor 1966–71, and staff conductor. He died in Warminster.

Maurice Handford died aged 58, was a conductor with a wide range in repertoire. Although he was perhaps not a familiar figure to concert goers on the South Bank, he was well known to audiences in the rest of the country and from 1971 to 1975 was principal conductor of the Calgary Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Salisbury, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music. He was a horn player and for 12 years, from 1949 to 1961, he was principal Horn in Barbirolli's Hallé. Although he did not have a big tone, he had a natural feeling for tone colour and was unfailingly accurate, one rarely heard a 'fluff' in any of his orchestral solos.

He had ambitions to be a conductor and was assisted by the patronage of ICI (Blackley), which invited him to conduct the works orchestra and, in May 1960, sponsored a Hallé concert in Manchester at which he conducted Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique. He was also helped by Barbirolli, who invited him to conduct some Hallé industrial concerts.

By 1962 he was sufficiently launched to be given charge of the first Hallé performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana. Soon he was conducting works of the size of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Shostakovich's 12th symphony.

Between 1976 and 1980 be conducted Brighouse and Rastrick and CWS (Manchester) Band at major contests.

In this show he is conducting the Virtuosi Brass Band of Great Britain...

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