User:DGraham675/David Graham

David Graham FRCM, BMus, ARCM (born 25th September 1957) is an organist and a leading organ teacher based in London.

Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, he currently holds important positions as Organist and Director of Music at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street in London’s Mayfair district and Professor in-charge-of Organ at the Royal College of Music.

David Graham was educated at Methodist College Belfast, where he studied organ with Desmond Hunter. In 1976 he won a scholarship to continue organ studies at the Royal College of Music in London with Nicholas Danby. Postgraduate studies included a year at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, studying early performance practices with Klass Bolt, and further studies in organ improvisation with Naji Hakim in Paris and Peter Planyavsky in Vienna.

As an organist he has played extensively throughout Europe and the USA. His repertoire is wide but Graham has commissioned organ works by the contemporary British composer, Huw Watkins and given premieres of his music in Notre Dame and St Sulpice in Paris. As a teacher he has taught some of the UK’s leading young organists who have won prizes in International Competitions and many have gone on to hold important positions in some of the leading cathedrals and churches throughout the United Kingdom and further afield.

Since 1981 he worked extensively with one of London’s leading professional choirs at Farm Street Church. Graham has recorded extensively as a solo artist in music by Guy Weitz, his predecessor as organist at Farm Street Church in London, and music by Dupré, Franck, d’Indy, among others. He also features as an accompanist in a wide range of choral music, and as a conductor in works by Nino Rota and other 19th and 20th century composers.