Patrick Russill

He was also Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at the Leipzig Hochschule für Musik und Theater from 2001 to 2023 and has taught at conservatoires in Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Strasbourg and Cluj-Napoca (Romania). He was Chief Examiner of the Royal College of Organists 2005-2017. In 2022 he was awarded a personal professorial chair and is now an Emeritus Professor of the University of London.

Patrick has been Director of Music at the London Oratory Church since 1999, with overall responsibility for its choral tradition and its famous professional choir, which under his direction ‘remains among the finest mixed-voice choirs in the country’ (Choir & Organ). He was Organist of the London Oratory from 1977 to 1979.

As an organ recitalist he has played at the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, in Europe, Asia and across the UK. He introduced the reconstructed Tudor organs of the Early English Organ Project to London’s Southbank Centre. The recital took place in Queen Elizabeth Hall and was acclaimed by the Independent on Sunday, as the outstanding London keyboard concert of the year in 2007.

He has published articles on various aspects of the Catholic musical tradition including early Tudor liturgical organ music, baroque organ music of Catholic Germany (in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ), Howells’s Latin church music and Dupré’s Vespers as well as editions of choral music by Sweelinck and Howells in particular. He was Musical Editor of The Catholic Hymn Book (1998) and a contributor to New Grove.

Patrick is a Vice-President of the Herbert Howells Society, Chairman of the Church Music Society, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and of the Cathedral Organists Association. In 2015 he was honoured by the Association of British Choral Directors with its annual Chair’s Award for Choral Leadership. He also holds Fellowships honoris causa of the Royal College of Organists, the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians. He is also a trustee of the Organists Charitable Trust, and of the Nicholas Danby Trust.

In 2023 Patrick was awarded the Medal of the Royal College of Organists (its highest honour) for his achievement in choral conducting, choral pedagogy and church music. In 2024 he was honoured with a Papal Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory for his influence on, and contribution to, Catholic church music in the UK.