Artistic Director

                       






    

    Fran Farrall



    Fran is the wife of Seb, the founder of our orchestra, who died suddenly in a tragic cycling accident. The orchestra was incredibly special to Seb and such an important part of both of their lives, so Fran has taken on the role of Artistic Director to help the orchestra to honour Seb’s legacy of community music-making at its best.

    Fran originally began her musical training on the violin and piano, and later took up the French horn when free lessons were offered for instruments considered to be “endangered species” at Blue Coat C of E School. Here she was also a member of the choir when they won the BBC Songs of Praise School Choir of the Year competition in 2008. Having developed as a horn player in the Coventry Youth Orchestra, Fran went on to complete an MA in performance at Bangor University under the guidance of Richard Bourn (horn player in the Hallé). She was selected as soloist for Mozart’s 3rd Horn Concerto with the University Symphony Orchestra and conducted the University Concert Band.

    For several years Fran was a solo singer as part of “The Ladies of the Court of Coombe”, performing at the Medieval banquets at Coombe Abbey Hotel. She played the horn in Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra for 10 years and was also a regular pit musician at the Concordia Theatre in Hinkley.

    Fran and her university friends, Tammy and Carwyn set up a brass ensemble, All That Brass, with Seb as their percussionist. The two couples played at a variety of events, the most memorable being at the Great Dunmow Flitch Trials where they became the court minstrels with fanfares and processions galore!

    Fran trained as a primary school teacher in 2014 at the University of Warwick and has taught at Finham Primary school since 2015. After a few years in the classroom, Fran began teaching small group instrumental lessons (violin, piano, trumpet, recorder, guitar, ukulele and singing). Seb and Fran spent a lot of time in the home studio recording vocal guide tracks to help choir members to learn their individual parts, and these tracks are still sold all over the world (onlineconductor.com).

    Currently Fran focusses mainly on her private instrumental teaching and spending time with 2-year-old daughter, Maisy, and Polyphony the cat.