Ben Hancox

Last updated March 13, 2019

Ben Hancox is an English violinist most famous for co-founding the Sacconi String Quartet in 2001.

The Sacconi Quartet is a UK-based classical music string quartet founded in 2001 by four graduates of the Royal College of Music, London, UK. The Quartet has achieved widespread recognition, having given recitals in leading British concert halls and at music festivals in Britain and across Europe. They have also won several major prizes in string quartet and chamber music competitions. The Quartet is named for the outstanding twentieth-century Italian violin maker and restorer Simone Sacconi, whose book The Secrets of Stradivari is considered an indispensable reference for violin makers.

Pre-Sacconi life

Hancox started playing the violin at the age of four. In his late teens he studied with Serguei Fatkouline in Madrid and Bonn, before being accepted into the Royal College of Music. There he also studied with Felix Andrievsky. At the RCM, he won both major violin prizes, before leaving with a first class honours degree. In his postgraduate diploma, he was awarded a distinction in performance.

Madrid is the capital of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has almost 3.3 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (EU), smaller than only London and Berlin, and its monocentric metropolitan area is the third-largest in the EU, smaller only than those of London and Paris. The municipality covers 604.3 km² (233.3 sq mi).

The Federal City of Bonn is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About 24 km (15 mi) south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germany's largest metropolitan area, with over 11 million inhabitants. It is famously known as the birthplace of Ludwig Van Beethoven in 1770. Beethoven spent his childhood and teenage years in Bonn.

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Art including performance, composition, conducting, music theory and history. The RCM also undertakes research, with particular strengths in performance practice and performance science. The college is one of the four conservatories of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and a member of Conservatoires UK. Its buildings are directly opposite the Royal Albert Hall on Prince Consort Road, next to Imperial College and among the museums and cultural centres of Albertopolis.

During his undergraduate studies, Hancox received the Emily English Scholarship, before then receiving the Associated Board for his postgraduate studies.

The ABRSM is an examinations board and registered charity based in London, UK, which provides examinations in music at centres around the world. ABRSM is one of four examination boards accredited by Ofqual to award graded exams and diploma qualifications in music within the UK's National Qualifications Framework. 'The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music' was established in 1889 and rebranded as ABRSM in 2009. The clarifying strapline "the exam board of the Royal Schools of Music" was introduced in 2012.

Founding the quartet

In 2001, Hancox founded the Sacconi Quartet along with its co-founders, Hannah Dawson, Robin Ashwell and Cara Berridge. The quartet started off playing in weddings, but rapidly grew as more and more people became aware of their existence.

Other work

As well as playing in the quartet, Hancox is also a very well known soloist, collaborating with many famous orchestras and artists.

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References

All information is taken from Hancox's profile at the Sacconi Quartet's official website.

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