Adrian Butterfield

Adrian Butterfield has gained an international reputation as a violinist, director and conductor who specialises in period performance of music from about 1600-1900. He is Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Festival and was Associate Music Director of the London Handel Festival for 25 years. He is Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music in London and teaches on numerous baroque music courses.

He leads and directs The London Handel Players and The Revolutionary Drawing Room and conducted The London Handel Orchestra for many years as well as being invited to work as a guest with many other ensembles in Europe and North America.

His world premiere recording of Leclair's Third Book of violin sonatas Op.5 in 3 volumes was released in 2022 on Naxos Records and was recorded with the wonderful team of Sarah McMahon, cello, and Silas Wollston, harpsichord.

Two further recordings were released in 2023: JS Bach's sonatas for keyboard and violin and London Handel Players' 'Total Eclipse' ('Handel at Home, Vol. 2') and Telemann 'Paris' Quartets and Leclair Violin Concertos are due for release in 2025 all on the SOMM label.

'How does a critic begin to describe the most perfectly performed musical experience in many years? By listing, of course, in a roll of honour, those who created it, beginning with the masterly Adrian Butterfield, whose sure direction (from the violin) and complete immersion in the idiom was undoubtedly responsible for the exceptional quality of the performance.'
- Barry Creasy, musicOMH St. Matthew Passion, St. John’s, Smith Square, London, 17th June 2015

'Technically and musically, Butterfield is a marvel'
- Julie Anne Sadie, Gramophone Magazine, Leclair Book 2, Sept 2013