Graham Walker received his early musical education as a chorister at St John’s College, Cambridge, and was subsequently awarded a top music scholarship to Harrow School. In 1995, within the space of six weeks, he performed Elgar’s Cello and Schumann’s Piano Concerti, and gained a choral scholarship which allowed him to return to St John’s in 1996. In that year he won the UNICEF Young Conductors’ platform. At Cambridge, Graham combined daily choral commitments (including tours throughout the world) with studying Mathematics, and performed extensively on the cello, piano and organ. He also developed his conducting experience, directing performances of Requiems by Fauré and Duruflé as well as Bach’s B Minor Mass, and was appointed Musical Director of ‘The Gentlemen of St John’s’. His cello playing during this time included numerous recitals and performances of concerti by Haydn and Saint-Saëns. In 2000 he took up a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied cello and baroque cello with Lionel Handy and Jennifer Ward-Clarke, gaining a distinction in his final recital; he was subsequently awarded a grant by the KPMG/Martin Musical Scholarship Fund to continue his studies after graduation.
As a cellist, he has given numerous recitals at venues throughout Europe and the US, and festival performances have included Spitalfields, Windsor, Halifax, Cambridge, the London Handel Festival, Aldeburgh (where he was Emmanuelle Haïm’s continuo cellist in Charpentier’s Acteon) and the Edinburgh fringe, amongst others. He has recorded variously as a cellist, singer and conductor for EMI, Chandos, Nimbus, Quillisma and, most recently, for Naxos. Graham is a regular deputy for the Royal Opera House, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the English Syphony Orchestra, and has worked as a deputy for the English National Opera and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; he is principal cellist of Opera East Productions and Iford Opera. He combines his busy solo recital career with a full schedule of chamber music performances. Alongside engagements closer to home, plans are currently being completed for a follow-up tour of the US with Chris Whitton in March 2008, and for a second trip to Colombia with Classico Latino early in 2008.

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