John Partridge

John Partridge has been performing in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1970’s. As a concert pianist and organist, he specializes in music by American composers. As a composer, he has written everything from film scores to church cantatas. 

After graduating from Berkeley High School, John attended UC Santa Cruz where majored in composition and conducting. Returning to the Bay Area in 1976, Partridge served as music director of the Bay Psalmers (a chorus composed of businesspeople in downtown San Francisco), of Berkeley Harmonia Chorus and Orchestra, and at several local churches. His opera, The Soldiers Who Wanted to Kill Death was performed by Goat Hall Productions and this period also saw the premiere of his anti-war Missa L’homme Arme, his oratorio advocating for acceptance of homosexuals by the church: Harden Not Your Hearts and his Lenten Cantata Ah, Precious Jesus.

In 2020, Partridge relocated to Sonoma and quickly became active in the North Bay music scene. He has served as Music Director for several productions put on by Sonoma Arts Live Theatre Company, he ran the Wine Country Ragtime Festival and has accompanied Silent Movies for the Sonoma Film Festival. He is the conductor of the Sonoma Hometown Band which premiered his Concerto for Piano and Symphonic Band in 2018. He served for 13 years as the Director of Music Ministries for the First Presbyterian Church of Napa where his jazz cantata Calvary was premiered and also his shadow puppet show Tobit.

Partridge is currently associated with Trinity Episcopal Church in Sonoma for whom he wrote his Trinity Mass, which celebrates that church’s 170th anniversary.