George Parsons has been the Musical Director of the Escafeld Chorale since September 2022. He began his musical life as a boy chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, where he also began organ lessons. As a sixth-former he was Junior Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral and, after further study with Jacques van Oortmerssen at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, George read music at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he was also an organ scholar. Since graduating in 2003, George has worked in music ministry for churches in London, Sheffield, and Wakefield, and in 2016 completed a PhD in Musicology.

Currently, George works as the Music Minister at All Saints Ecclesall in Sheffield. He is also active as an academic and as a peripatetic instrumental teacher and has published writing on the music of J.S. Bach and Sir James MacMillan. Based in Chesterfield, George also serves as the accompanist for both the local Rose Choir and the Co-operative Choral Society. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

Tom Crathorne [link to https://tomcrathorne.com/] is a collaborative pianist, composer and musical director. He completed his music degree in 2018 and achieved a distinction on their Composition MA course, for which he was a recipient of the John Roach Postgraduate Scholarship. He approaches composition from an aesthetically focused standpoint and often tries to incorporate properties of and concepts relating to the physical world in his works. He also has a deep interest in phonetics and language and enjoys composing with subtle shades of timbres and non-12EDO tuning systems to evoke different physical and aural sensations within the listener. He recently collaborated with poet Kathleen Swann for a commission by Leeds Lieder Festival 2019, where he performed his work ‘The Bevin Boy’ alongside baritone and close friend William Kyle.

In addition to working with Escafeld Chorale, Tom accompanies concerts and recitals, including semi-regular performances at Firth Hall, and directs the eight-part choir Octogenesis. Tom has extensive experience in theatre as a musical director and pit orchestra player. Theatrical engagements have included roles at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, Sheffield University Drama Studio and London’s Pleasance Theatre. He has also been involved in music preparation for the Bolton Octagon and the Leeds Playhouse, and was répétiteur for the English Touring Opera’s Sheffield performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor in 2019.