Ralph Vaughan Williams after Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli are Vernon Handley, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder and Sir Andrew Davis. Record companies with extensive lists of Vaughan Williams recordings include EMI, Decca, Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos. Vaughan Williams refused a knighthood at least once, and declined the post of Master of the King's Music after Elgar's death. The one state honour he accepted was the Order of Merit in 1935, which confers no prenominal title: he preferred to remain "Dr Vaughan Williams". His academic and musical honours included an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Oxford (1919); the Cobbett medal for
Adam Stern (conductor) noted for his frequent performances of English music, especially that of Ralph Vaughan Williams. He led the first Seattle Symphony performance of Vaughan Williams' "Pastoral Symphony" in 1996; In January 2007, he and the Seattle Philharmonic presented the Northwest premiere of the same composer's final symphony, No. 9. Stern has also led Seattle, Northwest, West Coast and world premieres of works by Aaron Copland, Gustav Holst, Aurelio de la Vega, Gerard Schurmann, Richard Peaslee, Richard Danielpour, Rodion Shchedrin, James Tenney, Roque Cordero, Karl Nord, Paul Stanhope and Goffredo Petrassi. He has composed incidental music for numerous dramatic production in Los