Adrian Butterfield is a violinist, director and conductor who specialises in performing music from 1600-1900 on period instruments. He is Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Festival and Associate Director of the London Handel Festival and regularly directs the London Handel Orchestra and London Handel Players as well as working as a guest soloist and director in Europe and North America. He has led The Revolutionary Drawing Room for 25 years.
He started playing string quartets at the age of seven at Pro Corda, a string chamber music course for children, and after 11 years as a student was a member of the coaching staff for over ten years.
The London Handel Players perform regularly at Wigmore Hall and throughout Europe and North America and made their debut at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Adrian’s world premiere complete recordings of Leclair’s first two Books of violin sonatas were released in 2009 and 2013 on Naxos Records.
He is Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music in London, gives masterclasses in Europe and North America and has taught at Dartington and Pro Corda Baroque. He also directs an annual baroque project with the Southbank Sinfonia.
He has conducted all the major choral works of Bach as well as numerous works by Handel and his contemporaries and directed ensembles such as the Croatian Baroque Ensemble in Zagreb, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Mozart Players.
Plans for the 2020/21 season include conducting Messiah with the London Mozart Players and Handel’s Il Trionfo in the London Handel Festival, performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with the London Handel Players, Beethoven quartets with the Revolutionary Drawing Room and recording more Leclair sonatas for Naxos.