Andrew Lucas - Music Director

Andrew Lucas has been Master of the Music at St Albans Cathedral since 1998.

Andrew was born in Shropshire in 1958, was chorister in his local parish church and went to school in Shrewsbury. From 1976 he studied at the Royal College of Music, organ with John Birch and composition with Herbert Howells and graduated with a London University BMus. Later organ studies continued with Peter Hurford and Piet Kee.

Before St Albans he was Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral in London and a freelance musician, conductor, chorus-master and keyboard continuo. As an organist he made over 25 CDs with St Paul’s Cathedral Choir and two solo recordings. He has played concerts throughout the UK, Europe and the USA. He was Artistic Director of the St Albans International Organ Festival from 1999 to 2007, directing four festivals (2001 to 2007) and the artistic consultant for the restoration of the Harrison & Harrison organ in the cathedral, completed in 2009.

With St Albans Cathedral Choir he has recently been on tour to Spain (2017), Germany (2015) and Italy (2013) and in the years before these to the Netherlands, Italy, the USA and twice to Sweden and France. They also broadcast frequently on radio and television. Recent recordings by the choir have been for Naxos; their last recording, with the Abbey Girls Choir and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (released May 2016) of music by John Rutter follows the success of a previous recording in 2011 that was listed in the BBC/Gramophone classical music top 20 for several weeks and a disc of Mozart (Masses and Regina Coeli) in 2012.

Also since 1998, he has been music director of the St Albans Bach Choir. With the Bach Choir he has conducted over 50 concerts of the large scale choral repertoire with orchestra and the choir enjoys an excellent reputation for the highest standards in their concerts.