Career
Dunn was released from his contract with the BBC and on 3 September 1931 commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Marines to be director of music for Portsmouth Division of the Corps. His duties included directing the Royal Marines Band on the Royal Yacht. In 1947, he took part in the royal tour of South Africa onboard HMS Vanguard and in a Royal Marines band tour of the United States and Canada in 1949.
His promotion to lieutenant-colonel and principal director of music, Royal Marines, came in 1953. Vivian and the Royal Marines Band then accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on the SS Gothic for the post-coronation Commonwealth Tour. Upon completing the tour, the Queen appointed Dunn CVO, and in 1960 OBE.
In 1955, Dunn was asked by Euan Lloyd of Warwick Films to compose the theme music for The Cockleshell Heroes (which was otherwise scored by John Addison). He appears as himself conducting the Royal Marines in the end titles of the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go.
Upon retiring from his military career in December 1968, Dunn became a guest conductor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He also recorded with the Light Music Society Orchestra. In 1969, he received an EMI Golden Disc for sales of over one million Royal Marines Band records. In the same year he was also elected as an honorary member of the American Bandmasters Association. In 1987 he received the Sudler Medal of the Order of Merit from the John Philip Sousa Foundation. In 1988, after serving as the Senior Warden, Dunn became the first military musician installed as the Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
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