Peter Sparks

The British clarinetist Peter Sparks has combined a diverse career as a performer with an important teaching career. Co-principal clarinet at the English National Opera, he has appeared on several recordings. Sparks began his career as a church chorister but switched to the clarinet after he discovered he liked the sound of the instrument. From 1995 to 1998, he was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and he later joined the Britten/Pears Orchestra. Sparks attended Downing College at Cambridge University, earning a master's degree with honors in 2000, and went on to become a member of the London Symphony Orchestra/Royal Academy of Music Wind Scheme. He earned a postgraduate diploma (PGDip) with distinction at the Royal Academy of Music, receiving that degree in 2002. His teachers included Dame Thea King, Angela Malsbury, Nick Rowell, and Richard Addison. From 2002 to 2004, Sparks was a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra. In 2008, he gave a recital in the Park Lane concert series at the Purcell Room in London, including the world premieres of works by Peter Wiegold and Nicola LeFanu; he has continued to perform contemporary music frequently. Sparks has an exceptionally long list of credits as a guest clarinetist, having appeared with more than 50 ensembles. Except for a traveling New York City Ballet Orchestra that appeared in London and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, where he was an audition finalist, all of these enembles have been British; they have included many of the country's major municipal orchestras as well as several associated with the BBC, and smaller groups such as the Aurora Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, as well as the Garsington Opera Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera Orchestra, and other theatrical groups. In 2016, Sparks became a member of the Orchestra of the English National Opera. He is also an enthusiastic chamber music player who has performed with the Art Deco Trio; in 2021, he made his recording debut with that group on its album Gershwinicity. Sparks appeared on the 2023 Orsino Ensemble release Echoes of Bohemia: Czech Music for Wind.
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