Former Bermuda Regiment Music Director Horace Gibbons died on Tuesday, having celebrated his 91st birthday on February 3.Captain Horace Richard Stanley Gibbons, of Wellington Slip Road, St. George’s, enjoyed a life distinguished by music, starting as a clarinet player in the Richard Allen African Methodist Church band. He remained a lifelong member of the Queen Street, St. George’s church. His alto sax and clarinet playing were a regular fixture at Sunday services.Minister of National Security Wayne Perinchief yesterday offered his condolences, saying: “The name Horace Gibbons is synonymous with music.“Throughout his life Capt Gibbons contributed to the musical enrichment of Bermuda’s community, and cultivated many local musical talents to the point of excellence in their craft.”Born in 1920 to Horace and Mamie Gibbons, Capt Gibbons was also associated with the military throughout his life, beginning in 1935, when he joined the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA) band.He took the position of Director of Music for the Bermuda Regiment when the mainly black BMA was integrated with the white Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps.Major Leslie Lowe recalled Capt Gibbons as “quiet, firm, a family man who loved his children, his wife, and his church. He was a fair man, but could be very disciplined when discipline was needed.”Major Lowe said: “I joined the BMA as a boy solider in 1961, so I spent quite a few years with him. I think of myself as one of his protegees. He had a lot to do with young musicians, and in my case he took me under his wing. Everything I know about music, I owe to him.”Capt Gibbons worked as a schoolteacher in St George’s Secondary School, of maths as well as music, as a cook at the Kindley US Air Force Base officer’s club. He was perhaps best known for performing as a saxophonist in bands throughout the Island, especially during the heyday of live music.Major Lowe recalled him as “a tinkerer with music, who played piano and other instruments, and he played in band orchestras back in the Castle Harbour days.”In 1939, Capt Gibbons married Artimeza Watson, by whom he is survived. Aged only 19 at the time, he had to drop out of the BMA as he was too young to qualify for the army marriage allowance. That same year, the Second World War broke out, prompting him to rejoin.Becoming Bandmaster for the BMA, Capt Gibbons subsequently became the Bermuda Regiment’s first Director of Music a position which he held the position until 1974, when he was succeeded by Major Kenneth Dill.In 2004, Capt Gibbons made headlines when two men, including one of his former students, dived into Mullet Bay to rescue him from nearly drowning. Aged 84, he had fallen from a punt on the way out to his boat, and become entangled in a rope. He credited the men with saving his life.Capt Gibbons was the father of Frederick, Melvin, Harold and Joseph Gibbons, and of Winifred Bascome and Antoinette Simons.