Iain Farrington (born 1977) is a British pianist, organist, composer and arranger. He performs regularly with some of the country's leading singers, instrumentalists and choirs, as well as giving solo recitals.
Farrington studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music, London and was Organ Scholar at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle and Organ Scholar at St John's College, Cambridge. As a solo pianist, accompanist, chamber musician and organist, he has performed at Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, the BBC Proms, the Royal Opera House, and in the US, Japan, South Africa, and across Europe.
Farrington played the piano at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, performing "Chariots of Fire" with Rowan Atkinson (as Mr. Bean), the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle (and appeared as a runner in Mr. Bean's dream sequence). [1] He has made two solo piano recordings featuring his own compositions and arrangements, Fiesta! and Piano Songs. [2] [3] His solo performance in the Proms 2007 on the Royal Albert Hall organ was critically acclaimed. [4] In 2013 he featured as a piano soloist in Howard Goodall's 'Story of Music' on BBC Television. [5] He has performed the organ works of Schoenberg in concerts for the Schoenberg family in Los Angeles [6] At the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London he performed Ligeti's Continuum for solo harpsichord in 2012. [7]
As a composer, Farrington has written orchestral, choral and chamber works. His orchestral work Wing It was composed for the Wallace and Gromit Prom in 2012. [8] His choral work The Burning Heavens premiered with Twickenham Choral in 2009 and was nominated for a British Composer Award in 2010. [9] His organ suite, Fiesta!, has been performed extensively and recorded several times. [10] [11] [12] His organ work Animal Parade has been recorded and was featured at the 2011 Lord Mayor's Show in St Paul's Cathedral, London, with narration by Brian Blessed. [13] [14]
In 2023, he was one of twelve composers asked to write a new piece for the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. [15] His composition for organ, Voices of the World, incorporated tunes from countries of the Commonwealth and was performed before the coronation ceremony began. [16]
Farrington has made numerous arrangements for orchestra, choir and chamber ensemble. He has made many arrangements of the music of Edward Elgar. His arrangement of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 was performed at the 2011 Royal Wedding, [17] while his arrangement of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 was performed at the 2023 Coronation. [18] His other organ arrangements of Elgar have been recorded at Westminster Abbey by Robert Quinney. [19] Farrington has made a version of Elgar's Concert Allegro for piano and orchestra which he has recorded, as well as his solo piano arrangement of Elgar's 2nd Symphony. [20] He has also transcribed Elgar's Five Piano Improvisations and made piano versions of Falstaff, the 1st Symphony, and the Elgar/Payne 3rd Symphony . [21]
He is the Arranger in Residence for the Aurora Orchestra, and has made many reduced versions of orchestral and choral works for chamber ensembles. [22] Orchestral works include Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 (performed at the Proms 2010), Mahler's 1st Symphony, Das Lied von der Erde and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. [23] He has also done arrangements/reductions of opera scores including Dvorak's Rusalka, Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen and Tippett's King Priam. [24] [25] [26] Choral works arranged include Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden (for English Touring Opera) and Brahms A German Requiem. [27]
Farrington orchestrated and arranged all the songs for the Horrible Histories Prom in 2011. [28] He was commissioned to compose a "mash-up" piece for the 2020 Proms season based on Beethoven's Nine Symphonies. It was recorded by all the five BBC orchestras and the BBC Singers in a "Grand Virtual Orchestra" of some 350 performers and was broadcast on BBC Four on 19 July 2020. [29] [30] [31]
William Havergal Brian was a prominent 20th-century English composer, librettist, and church organist.
Sir Henry Joseph Wood was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences. After his death, the concerts were officially renamed in his honour as the "Henry Wood Promenade Concerts", although they continued to be generally referred to as "the Proms".
Sir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera. Some of his light operas, especially Merrie England, are still performed.
Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar. Many mezzo-sopranos have sung the piece.
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras.
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.
Julian Anderson is a British composer and teacher of composition.
Crown Imperial is an orchestral march by William Walton, commissioned for the coronation of King George VI in Westminster Abbey in 1937. It is in the Pomp and Circumstance tradition, with a brisk opening contrasting with a broad middle section, leading to a resounding conclusion. The work has been heard at subsequent state occasions in the Abbey: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the wedding of Prince William in 2011 and the coronation of King Charles III in 2023. It has been recorded in its original orchestral form and in arrangements for organ, military band and brass band.
Anthony Edward Payne was an English composer, music critic and musicologist. He is best known for his acclaimed completion of Edward Elgar's third symphony, which subsequently gained wide acceptance into Elgar's oeuvre. Apart from opera, his own works include representatives of most traditional genres, and although he made substantial contributions to orchestral and choral repertoire, he is particularly noted for his chamber music. Many of these chamber works were written for his wife, the soprano Jane Manning, and the new music ensemble Jane's Minstrels, which he founded with Manning in 1988. Initially an unrelenting proponent of modernist music, by the 1980s his compositions had embraced aspects of the late romanticism of England, described by his colleague Susan Bradshaw as "modernized nostalgia". His mature style is thus characterised by a highly individualised combination of modernism and English romanticism, as well as numerology, wide-spaced harmonies, specific intervallic characterisations, and the frequent alternation between strict and fluid rhythmic frameworks.
David Bruce is a British composer and a YouTuber.
Ernest John Austin was an English composer, music arranger and editor. Although little-remembered today, Austin's orchestral music enjoyed some success in its own time, including performances at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts and on BBC Radio during the 1920s. He was a prolific composer of songs, covering a wide spectrum of mood, from serious Shakespearean settings to ballads of both sentimental and robust natures. He found some success writing piano pieces and unison songs for children. He also made piano transcriptions of the work of other composers, a particularly common practice of the time.
John Wilson is a British conductor, arranger and musicologist, who conducts orchestras and operas, as well as big band jazz. He is the creator of the John Wilson Orchestra and Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
James Burton is a British conductor and composer. He is currently the Boston Symphony Orchestra Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. He also holds the position of Director of Orchestral Activities and Master Lecturer in Music at Boston University.
Robert Walker is an English composer, writer and broadcaster.
Walter Battison Haynes was an English pianist, organist and composer.
Joanna Marsh is a British composer of choral and orchestral works, who has lived in Dubai since 2007.
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