Adrian Partington

Since 2007 Adrian Partington has held the post of Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral while simultaneously directing several other leading choral ensembles, placing him among Britain’s most energetic and widely engaged choral conductors. He is equally recognized for his work as an organist, pianist, and teacher.

Born in Nottingham on October 1, 1958, Partington grew up in a household where his father, a pianist, and his mother, a violinist, regularly performed sonatas together in the absence of a television. As a chorister in Worcester Cathedral Choir he participated in the Three Choirs Festival at the age of ten, encountering large-scale choral repertoire that included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Op. 123. He later became an organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and studied with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music in London.

His first professional appointment was as assistant organist at Worcester Cathedral, a position he occupied from 1981 to 1991. During that decade his interests shifted increasingly toward conducting, leading him to work extensively beyond cathedral walls. In the 1990s he prepared and directed both the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus and its Youth Chorus for performances under Simon Rattle. His first recording appeared in 1996 on the Priory Records label, launching a series devoted to the organ sonatas of Gustav Merkel.

In 1999 Partington was appointed director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, a role that also required him to conduct the BBC National Orchestra of Wales several times each season. The following year he assumed leadership of the Bristol Choral Society as well. Guest engagements during this period took him to the BBC Symphony Chorus, the London Symphony Chorus, and other prominent ensembles. He retained the Bristol directorship after taking up his Gloucester post in 2007. That appointment brought joint conductorship of the Three Choirs Festival, where he planned the 2010 program and led the world premiere of John Joubert’s English Requiem, together with the conductorship of the Gloucester Choral Society.

Partington has appeared as organ or piano soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, and additional major orchestras. Amid his Gloucester responsibilities he has continued to prepare and conduct recordings for the Priory and Lyrita labels. In 2019 he directed the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales in the world-premiere recording of Charles Villiers Stanford’s Mass “Via Victrix 1914-1918,” Op. 173, issued on Lyrita. He returned to the same label in 2024 with a further Stanford album containing the Te Deum, Op. 66.