Performers

The Farrington Ensemble was formed at the Royal Academy of Music in 2001, to perform the 60th anniversary of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Since then, the Ensemble has performed all across the UK with the most diverse repertoire. Winners of the Mortimer Award at the Royal Academy, the Ensemble has featured in festivals in Halifax and Windsor, and in such venues as the Bath Pump Rooms, the National Portrait Gallery and Trinity College, Cambridge.

As an experienced and established group, the Ensemble aims to challenge, entertain and enlighten their audiences, in concert halls and music clubs across the country. The Ensemble is passionate about contemporary music and commissions new works, as well as making arrangements of familiar pieces. By extending and expanding the repertoire, the Ensemble creates a new style of concert programmes, incorporating Classical, modern and light music.

Tom Hankey - violin

Tom Hankey studied the violin with David Takeno, Krzyzstof Smietana, Levon Chilingirian and Yossi Zivoni. As a chamber musician he has performed at major concert halls and festivals in Europe and Canada, and won prizes including the 2000 and 2006 Over-Seas League ensemble prize. He is currently a BBC Radio Three New Generation Artist with the Aronowitz Ensemble.

He is a member of the Na Mara Ensemble which specializes in the repertoire for string trio and piano quartet. The group regularly tours in Scotland and often collaborates with violinist/fiddler Donald Grant in mixed programmes of classical and folk music. He is also a member of the Kreisler Ensemble and the Sounds Underground Ensemble, both of which are very committed to the performance of contemporary music. As a soloist he has performed concertos by Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi. 

Tom performed a solo work for viola in the 2005 BBC Proms and he has been supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Abbado Trust and the South Square Trust.

Graham Walker - cello

Graham Walker has a flourishing career as a solo and chamber musician, playing at numerous festivals and other venues throughout Europe and the US. Graham was a choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in Mathematics. In 2000 he took up a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied cello with Lionel Handy and baroque cello with Jennifer Ward-Clarke.

Graham is cellist of the Farrington Ensemble, the British Camerata, Janiculum, and Classico Latino (a piano trio performing classic Latin-American music with whom he recently made a hugely successful tour of Colombia, selling out the Bogotá Opera House and subsequently being offered a major recording contract). Highlights of his work as a continuo player include Charpentier’s Acteon under Emmanuelle Haïm. Principal cellist of Opera East and the Pepys Ensemble, Graham is a regular deputy for the ROH and the BBC NOW, and has played for the ENO and RSNO. He has recorded variously as a cellist, singer and conductor for EMI, Chandos, Nimbus, Quillisma and Naxos. In 2005 he undertook his debut recital tour of the USA and is returning for a second tour in 2008.

Peter Sparks - clarinet

Born in Bangor, North Wales, Peter Sparks read music at Cambridge University studying with Dame Thea King. He subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Music, winning the Geoffrey Hawkes Clarinet and Harold Craxton Chamber Music competitions. He was also principal clarinet of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

As a soloist, he has twice reached the Finals of the Royal Over-Seas League competition, performed at Cheltenham International Music Festival and in the Park Lane Group Composer's Forum at the South Bank. In 2001, he was privileged to represent the RAM at the late Frederick Thurston’s Centenary Concert, where his playing was described as "brilliant" (The Clarinet magazine). As a concerto soloist, he has performed numerous concerti with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Symphony Orchestra and Southbank Sinfonia.

Peter also performs with the Gallimaufry Ensemble, London Winds, Nash Ensemble and London Sinfonietta in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall (Proms 2006), Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He has broadcast on BBC TV, Radio 3, ITV, and has recorded for Naxos, Black Box Records and has recently completed Walton’s Façade with ‘Kit and the Widow’.

Peter has worked with the Philharmonia, Bournemouth and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and as principal clarinet, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Concert Orchestra and English Symphony Orchestra.

Iain Farrington - piano

Iain Farrington performs extensively as a pianist and organist both in the UK and abroad. He studied music at St John's College, Cambridge University, where he was Organ Scholar, and piano at the Royal Academy of Music.

Iain has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Birmingham Symphony Hall, in Japan, South Africa, Malaysia, Jordan, and all across Europe and the UK. He gives regular broadcasts on BBC Radio Three and has recorded four CD's on the Naxos and Nimbus labels, including an award-winning disc of Howells. He has worked with Lesley Garrett, the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Opera, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Mark Elder and Thomas Àdes. Iain is the accompanist for the London Philharmonic Choir, and also regularly accompanies the BBC Singers. With the Endymion Ensemble, Iain has performed in St John's Smith Square, annually at the Proms since 2004, and with the Farrington Ensemble in the Windsor Festival, the Pump Rooms, Bath and the Halifax Festival.

Iain is a prolific composer and arranger, having made over one hundred arrangements for piano, organ and chamber ensembles. His arrangements are published by Boosey and Hawkes, Novello, and his organ suite Fiesta! has been recorded on the Hyperion label.