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
Ernest Williams (conductor) and Morton Gould. From 1929 to 1931, Williams divided his time between the Brooklyn school and as the new Dean of the Ithaca Conservatory Conway Band School, being the chosen successor of Patrick Conway. While fulfilling administrative duties at his respective institutions, Williams continued to conduct and also composed. He earned high praise for his conducting prowess with the Kismet Temple Band in Brooklyn and also, beginning in 1935, as the conductor of the New York University Symphonic Band. As a composer, Williams became the first American to write a full symphony for band when he penned the "Symphony in