Eric Coates (1886 – 1957) was an English composer of light music and a viola player.
The Dambusters March is Eric Coates's stirring theme for the 1954 film The Dam Busters.
It is critically and popularly acclaimed and made a tremendous contribution to the film, achieving iconic status. For many it is synonymous with the film — indeed with the exploit itself. The Dambusters March remains a favourite military band item at flypasts in the UK.
The film score itself was completed by Leighton Lucas.
Eric Coates was born in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire, the son of a doctor, and studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1906. From 1910 he played in the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood, becoming principal violist in 1912. By the end of the 1910s he was concentrating entirely on composition, having been forced to give up the viola for medical reasons. He had an early success with the overture The Merrymakers (1922), but more popular was the London Suite (1933).
Amongst his early champions was Sir Edward Elgar.
He died in Chichester having suffered a stroke.
