Harold Edwin Darke was born in London, October 29, 1888, and died in Cambridge, November 28, 1976. Darke received his formal training at the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, and at Oxford. He had a world-wide reputation as one of the finest organists of his era. He held positions at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead (1906) and subsequently at St. James, Paddington.

During his fifty years (1916-66) as organist at St. Michael's, Cornhill (London), his weekly recitals, which included the entire organ works of Bach, made him a city institution. In 1919 he founded the Saint Michael's Singers and remained its conductor until 1966. In his choral festivals he presented not only established masterworks, but championed the music of little-known contemporary composers such as Vaughan Williams and Charles Hubert Parry. Darke's numerous compositions are mostly, but by no means exclusively, choral and organ works. They are generally serious and reflective in character.