Adrian Butterfield

ADRIAN BUTTERFIELD

LONDON HANDEL PLAYERS

Adrian Butterfield sang as a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral, read Music at Trinity College, Cambridge and studied at the Royal College of Music and has appeared on numerous stages across the world as a violinist, director and conductor who specialises in performing a wide range of music on period instruments.

He has been Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Festival since 2002 and he was the Associate Director of the London Handel Festival for 25 years. He directs the ensemble he co-founded, the London Handel Players, as well as working as a guest director throughout the UK, Europe and North America. He has also led the gut-string quartet, The Revolutionary Drawing Room, for over 25 years.

Founded in 2000 the London Handel Players perform regularly at Wigmore Hall and throughout Europe and North America and made their debut at Carnegie Hall in 2014. They have made numerous recordings of music by Handel and his contemporaries for Somm Records including Handel's trio sonatas Op.2 & Op.5, his complete Violin Sonatas and two volumes of aria arrangements, ‘Handel at Home’ and ‘Total Eclipse’ as well as Geminiani’s Op.1 sonatas and Telemann’s Quadri. His recording of Bach’s sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and violin with Silas Wollston was released by Somm Records in early 2023.

Adrian’s world premiere complete recordings of Leclair’s first three Books of violin sonatas were released in 2009, 2013 and 2022 on Naxos Records to great international acclaim. His most recent release on Somm is a first volume of violin concertos by Leclair with LHP in October 2025.

Adrian 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, at the Belgrade Baroque Academy and Pro Corda Baroque. He has directed an annual baroque project with the Southbank Sinfonia for over 20 years.

He has conducted all the major choral works of Bach including nearly a hundred of his cantatas as well as numerous works by Handel (Messiah, Esther, Alcina, Orlando, Parnasso in Festa, Israel in Egypt, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, La Resurrezione, Chandos Anthems) and their contemporaries. He has directed ensembles such as the London Mozart Players, the Croatian Baroque Ensemble, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, the European Union Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Plans for the 2025/6 season include directing programmes entitled ‘French Delicacies’, ‘Mozart in Mannheim’ and ‘Bach Celebratory Cantatas’ at Wigmore Hall as part of the Hall’s 125th season, Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum in Toronto and Bach’s Easter Oratorio in Tilford. LHP will give numerous chamber concerts in the UK and abroad.

“Equally fascinating is Butterfield's one-to-a-part version of Handel's Sonata a 5; the shading and textures he brings to his line, and the Corellian lashings which he and the others apply to their parts, are their invention.”

BBC Music Magazine, December 2023

“…it’s Butterfield and the London Handel Players to whom I’ve found myself gravitating in the pursuit of pleasure. They’re just a tad more varied in colour and timbre, and more real in their human expression.”

Gramophone Magazine, October 2025