(Conductor)

Adrian Partington is a versatile musician, having achieved success as conductor, chorus master, pianist and organist. He was educated at the , where he studied with , and King’s College, Cambridge where he was both the and an Academic Scholar.

He took up his post as Director of Music at in January 2008 and is joint conductor of the Three Choirs Festival and Artistic Director during a Gloucester year. He is also Artistic Director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, and Conductor of both the and Gloucester Choral Societies.

At Gloucester, Adrian has directed the Cathedral Choir on a tour of the U.S.A in 2008, to Cape Town, South Africa in 2011 and to Sweden in 2012. He has directed the choir in an acclaimed recording of the choral works of John Joubert and several BBC broadcasts, and in many concerts, including the 2011 Cheltenham International Festival. He has also taken to Cathedral Choristers to sing joint concerts with the combined forces of the Gloucester Choral Society and the .

Since taking up his BBC appointment in 1999, Adrian Partington has prepared the BBC National Chorus of Wales for almost a hundred BBC Radio 3 concerts and recordings, a number of which he has conducted himself. He conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales several times each season, including, in both 2007 and 2010, the orchestra’s St. David’s Day Gala Concert and later this year he will conduct the orchestra in an orchestral concert in Colston Hall, Bristol featuring music by Britten, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Under Adrian’s guidance, the Bristol Choral Society has maintained its place as one of the leading big city choirs in the UK. Performances are usually given with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

As well as regular performances with the BBC National Chorus of Wales and the Bristol Choral Society, Adrian has conducted the in provincial concerts, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in several Summer Proms, opera galas and choral-orchestral programmes, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the English Symphony Orchestra in Orchestral programmes at the Three Choirs Festival, and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. In 2001, for Welsh National Opera, he conducted the first performance of the community opera Katerina and has subsequently conducted several similar projects, including the much acclaimed ‘City Songs’ project in Bristol in 2003. The Katerina project won a Royal Philharmonic Society award in 2004 and the ‘City Songs’ project was revived in 2007 in Birmingham to national acclaim. Each season, Adrian conducts the Mozart Festival Orchestra on their UK tours of concerts for Raymond Gubbay Limited, performing to full houses at the Royal Albert Hall, and elsewhere in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Adrian made his debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican in December 2010. 2011 began with a flourish with Adrian conducting the English Symphony Orchestra at the Cambridge International Festival of Orchestras and he also conducted Dance Theatre Wales in several nationally acclaimed commissioned ballets.

When not conducting, Adrian is active as a pianist, harpsichordist and organist. He accompanies several leading instrumentalists and enjoys exploring performance practice, particularly of the 19th and early 20th centuries. His duo with the virtuoso violinist Margaret Faultless is increasingly in demand. They have given both Piano/Violin and Harpsichord/Baroque Violin recitals across the UK and in Germany.

Adrian Partington has performed organ solos with members of the , the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Philharmonic and the CBSO. He has recorded a dozen solo CD’s and given recitals across Europe, the USA and Australia.