The English String Quartet has a wide national and international reputation, with concerts and extensive tours in this country, Europe and the USA, and broadcasts for the BBC and radio stations abroad.  Many CDs have been recorded for several labels, including Chandos, Meridian and Unicorn-Kanchana, and the disc of Mendelssohn Quartets received the British Music Retailers Association Award for Excellence in Chamber Music.  The English String Quartet has been 'resident ensemble' at the Festival since 1995.

The English String Quartet was originally formed in 1909, and in its long history its members have included some of Great Britain's most distinguished string players: the violist and composer Frank Bridge, the cellist Ivor James, and the violinists Marjorie Haywood and Nona Liddell amongst others.Diana Cummings took over the leadership of the Quartet in 1982.  She is a recitalist and concerto soloist, a leader of chamber and symphony orchestras, and a Professor at both the Royal Academy and Trinity College of Music.  In the same year her husband Luciano Iorio joined as violist: he teaches at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music and at Eton College. Luciano has been member of several well known chamber ensembles, and is the Executive and Artistic Director of the London Festival of Chamber Music.  Subsequently Keith Lewis joined as second violin and Nick Holland as cellist.  Before joining the Quartet Keith developed his career in chamber music both in this country and in Venezuela, where he played with a number of ensembles and taught at the University of Valencia. Nick Holland has had a very varied career in baroque, classical and contemporary music. He was for many years a member of the Balanescu Quartet, performing in many countries and at major festivals, and has made many recordings.

Naomi Butterworth. It is unusual for a musician who works at the level of an orchestra like the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields to be not only an expert cellist, but also a flautist, pianist, double-bass player and jazz-musician! In her early career she toured with John Cleese etc. in the (1960's) Cambridge Footlights, and, also in Cambridge, she was cello tutor to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.  She tours Britain as a soloist as well as performing with a number of ensembles, including the Dartington Trio and the Ambache Ensemble, and has made many recordings.  She is a professor at London's Trinity College of Music.

The tenor John Graham-Hall, who sings in the two works by Vaughan Williams, Four Hymns  and On Wenlock Edge, is well known in London for his performances in both opera houses.  He is a principal at English National Opera, where he has sung many roles and has recently appeared in Lulu by Alban Berg, and will soon be Mime in the new Ring cycle.  Next month he will be Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos by Strauss at the Royal Opera House, where he has already sung the roles of Albert Herring and Basilio.  He has also sung with all the other major British companies, including Glyndebourne Festival, Kent Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Aldeburgh Festival, Almeida Festival, St Endellion Festival and Alderton. 

John Graham-Hall is also well known abroad, having worked in Rome, Lyon, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Vancouver, Toronto, Brussels, Antwerp, Lisbon, Stuttgart, Nice and Amsterdam.  Conductors he has worked with include Haitink, Boulez, Chailly, Abbado, Rattle, Harnoncourt, Gardiner, Nagano, Atherton, Tate and Andrew Davis.  His concert career has taken him all over Europe and he has sung with all the major British orchestras.  Highlights include War Requiem  and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by Britten, Dream of Gerontius by Elgar, Child of Our Time and King Priam by Tippett, and Joan of Arc by Honegger and Carmina Burana by Orff at the Proms.

He appears regularly on radio and television and has made several recordings, among which is ‘The Silver Tassie’ by Mark-Anthony Turnage, which has been recently released to great acclaim.

The violist Ian Jewel was a founder member of the Gabrieli String Quartet, with whom he played for thirty three years, and now continues his career as a member of the Zivoni String Quartet. He has toured world-wide and made over fifty recordings as well as numerous broadcasts and television appearances.  He has also given many concerto and recital performances both in this country and abroad. He is Head of Strings at the Purcell School and a Professor at the Royal College of Music.  Ian has already played at the London Festival of Chamber Music, in 1996 and 1997.

Martin Jones  is one of Britian's most highly regarded solo and chamber music pianists. He has performed with the major British orchestras, has appeared in all the main concert halls throughout the country and has extensively toured Europe, Russia and North and South America. His many discs include the complete solo piano works of Brahms, Debussy, Grainger, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky and Szymanowski. He has also released two boxes of CDs of Spanish music, including the major works of Albeniz and Turina, and is in the process of recording all the piano works of Richard Rodney Bennett.  Martin has played at the London Festival of Chamber Music every year since it began.

Nicholas Korth studied with Ifor James, the world renowned horn soloist, first in this country and then in Germany.  In 1993, following a postgraduate year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he became a member of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.  In 1997 he returned to England to take up the position of principal horn with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, and three years later was appointed co-principal horn of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.  He currently divides his time between this post, appearances as guest principal with other major orchestras, and chamber music with several ensembles.

The clarinettist Andrew Sparling has a wide-ranging career as a solo, chamber and orchestral musician.  As a soloist, he has performed at festivals in London, Huddersfield, New York and Belfast, and has recorded for BBC Radio 3 and Danish Radio; in May 2000 he made his debut at the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra.  He has also appeared on BBC 1 and Channel 4, and has made many broadcasts and recordings as a member of the ensembles Lontano, Apartment House, Ensemble Exposé and Double Image.  He gives regular recitals with the pianist Thalia Myers.

Richard Skinner.As well as appearing regularly on the concert platform as an orchestral and chamber music player, the bassoonist Richard Skinner is to be seen and heard in a large variety of musical manifestations, like for example as Elvis in Michael Docherty's Dead Elvis at the Salisbury and Bergamo festivals!  He is a member of the chamber ensembles Lontano, the Matrix Ensemble and the Fibonacci Sequence, and as a soloist he gave the world première of the bassoon concerto by Josef Horowitz.  He has recently recorded music by Holst (Chandos), Britten (Argo) and Rawsthorne (ASV).

Stacey Watton, double bass, made his concerto debut at the age of thirteen, and has appeared live on Russian television and radio as a prize winner at the Koussevitzky International Double Bass Competition in Moscow.  He is principal bass and guest principal with many English orchestras, and performs with several chamber ensembles, including The Esprit Ensemble, which he has recently formed.  He often appears on recordings, television and radio broadcasts, and has recently made his début as a solo recording artist with the CD 'Vertigo'.  He played at the London Festival of Chamber Music in 2000.