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.

The Ensemble aims to challenge, entertain and enlighten their audiences, by performing a wide variety of Classical, contemporary and light music. It is actively expanding the repertoire through commissions of new works, and by performing the Ensemble's own arrangements of familiar and popular pieces.

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 2006 Royal Over-Seas League ensemble prize. He was 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 committed to the performance of contemporary music.

As a soloist he has performed concertos by Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi. Tom has worked with the Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, and as leader of Opera East, Iford Opera, and the Southbank Sinfonia.

Graham Walker - cello

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

Graham is cellist of the Farrington Ensemble, the British Camerata, Janiculum, La Nuova Musica and Classico Latino (a piano trio performing classic Latin-American music with whom he made a hugely successful tour of Colombia, selling out the Bogotá Opera House). 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 has also worked with the Royal Opera House, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and English National Opera. He has recorded variously as a cellist, singer and conductor for EMI, Chandos, Nimbus, Quillisma and Naxos. In 2008 he undertook his second recital tour of the USA, where he performed all of Bach’s Cello suites, an achievement he repeated across the UK, including during the Edinburgh Festival.

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. 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 and Black Box Records.

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 has an exceptionally busy and diverse career as a pianist, organist, composer and arranger. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and St John's College, Cambridge University.

Iain has performed as a solo pianist, accompanist, chamber musician and organist at the major venues in the UK, including the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, as a soloist in the Proms 2007, the Royal Opera House, and abroad in South Africa, Japan, Jordan and across Europe. He has worked with some of the country's leading musicians, including Bryn Terfel, Lesley Garrett, John Mark Ainsley, the Royal Ballet, the BBC Singers, the London Philharmonic Choir, Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davis. He has made numerous recordings and has broadcast on BBC Television, Classic FM and BBC Radio 3.

As a creative musician, Iain is a prolific composer and arranger. He has arranged and performed over one hundred diverse works, from Mozart to Gershwin. He has an extensive catalogue of arrangements from solo piano to a chamber orchestral version of Dvorak's opera Rusalka, and include are publications by Boosey and Hawkes, and Novello. As a composer, Iain has written works for piano, organ, chorus and ensembles. His organ music has been performed in the USA, New Zealand, Sweden, France, Germany, in cathedrals across the UK, and recorded on the Hyperion label.