Richard Pinel, Director of Music

Richard Pinel was a Fellow and the Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge. Until 2021 he was additionally the Director of the Edington Music Festival.

Prior to this he was Assistant Director of Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle having previously held the organ scholarship at St Albans Cathedral. He is extremely excited to have moved to London to take up the post of Director of Music at St Mary’s.

Hailing from Northampton, where he was a chorister and later organ scholar at All Saints' Church, Richard was awarded the organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford in 2002. During this time, the Grammy-nominated college choir undertook several recording projects with Harmonia Mundi, on which Richard’s playing was hailed as ‘a force of nature’. More recently, Richard has enjoyed competition success, winning the First Prize and both special prizes at the Breda International Organ Competition.

Richard has taught for the RCO and tutored for Oundle for Organists. His organ CD, L’Orgue Symphonique, has been praised for its ‘electrifying impact’ and ‘truly tremendous verve’ and his latest release (as conductor), the world premiere recording of Grayston Ives’s Requiem with Jesus College Choir and the Britten Sinfonia entered the classical charts in the top ten. Recitals have taken him across the UK, notably King’s College, Cambridge and St John’s, Smith Square, and further afield to Europe and the USA.