Our free concert will take place during St Mary’s Festival, on Friday 19 September 2025.
Leora Cohen (violin) joins Director of Gloucester Cathedral, Adrian Partington (piano) for a unique collection of music by three English composers and the great Baroque composer, JS Bach.
Leora Cohen is a British-American violinist praised as a “brilliant player” (Suzy Klein), with a “natural feel for melody” (Nicola Benedetti), and the “sound of heavenly beauty” (Maxim Vengerov). A double-first graduate of the University of Cambridge and a postgraduate of the Royal College of Music, Leora now enjoys a richly varied career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician, performing internationally. She thrives on musical collaboration and regularly performs with a wide range of duo partners.
As Leora’s recital work across the UK continues to grow, she has become known for her imaginative and thought-provoking recital programming. These are often built around innovative themes, and actively champion under-represented composers and contemporary music. Leora has performed for MOOT (Music of Our Time) with pianist Jonathan Powell, and several composers have written and dedicated new works specifically for her.
This year she founded the Jozef Chasyd Quartet, who perform works by composers who have suffered from disabilities and mental illness to help raise awareness for today’s musicians.
Please find out more at www.leoraviolin.com, or find her on Instagram at @leoracohen.violin
Adrian Partington has had the privilege of a long and varied career, as a pianist, organist and conductor. He has been Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral since 2007 and since then he has introduced Girl Chor- isters into the Cathedral Choir and taken the choir to the USA, Canada, Sweden, and Germany where the Chor- isters sang with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Adrian has been Artistic Director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales since 1999. He has prepared the chorus for hundreds of concerts, (including dozens of BBC Proms). For many years, Adrian was conductor of Bristol Choral Society with whom he performed all the great oratorios, mostly with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Adrian was educated at the Royal College of Music and at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was the Organ Scholar for the famous College Choir. He has had fruitful partnerships with many great singers and instrumentalists over the years, including Emma Johnson (Clarinet), Maggie Faultless, (Violin) and James Gilchrist (Tenor). He is pleased now to be accompanying Leora Cohen, with whom he is sharing a number of concerts this year.
The concerts will take place on the third Friday of every month at 1.15pm with free hot drinks and cake served from 12.45pm.
The concerts are free and you do not need a ticket.
Dates for the next few concerts are: 17 October and 21 November
Free Friday Lunchtime Recitals at St Mary’s have been made possible by a generous legacy left by Denise Antenen.