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Adrian Geoffrey Sutton (15 August 1967 – 10 October 2025) was a British composer, best known for his theatre music but also widely known for his symphonic and chamber music for the concert hall. He composed the scores for a series of well received National Theatre productions, including War Horse (2007) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2011). In September 2022, Sutton was diagnosed with an incurable cancer "Don't waste time: War Horse composer Adrian Sutton on living with an incurable cancer diagnosis", The Guardian, 6 December 2022. from which he died in 2025.
The score for War Horse two years later is interspersed with simple folk songs on which Sutton collaborated with John Tams.Marla Carlson. Affect, Animals, and Autists: Feeling Around the Edges of the Human in Performance (2018), p. 36. The orchestral sections combine an English folk idiom (folk songs as the spirit of the village) with symphonic material referencing both English and German traditions, drawing on his interest in English orchestral music of the early and mid-twentieth century (notably Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams and William Walton). Composer biography, Chandos War Horse: Original London Cast Recording, Cordafonia Records CORDAF01 (2008) The Curious Incident score of 2011 was influenced by another enthusiasm - the electronic studio music of Mike Oldfield and Aphex Twin. While at Goldsmiths, Sutton studied electronic music, working on the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer. 'Symphony for SE14', in Goldlink, No. 33 (Spring 2010), pp. 12-13
Other scores for the National Theatre included Nation and The Revenger's Tragedy (both 2009), Husbands And Sons (D. H. Lawrence, adapted by Ben Power, 2015), Rules for Living (2015), and Angels in America (2018). For other theatres Sutton provided music for Cyrano de Bergerac (Bristol Old Vic, 2019), Dr. Semmelweis (Bristol Old Vic, 2022, adapting Franz Schubert), Dr. Semmelweis, Bristol Old Vic and Murder On The Orient Express (Chichester, 2022).
After his diagnosis, Sutton worked exclusively on concert works. "Sutton, Orchestral Works", reviewed at MusicWeb International. In June 2023 his Violin Concerto and other orchestral pieces, including an extended suite for orchestra constructed from the War Horse score, were performed at the Southbank Centre with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, soloist Fenella Humphreys, "'I've never been so productive': the composer who wrote a concerto during 12 lots of chemo", The Guardian, 20 June 2023. and subsequently recorded by Chandos Records. Chandos CHAN 20349 (2024), British Music Society
Sutton was married to Matthew Gough, his longtime associate and producer. He died at home on 10 October 2025, at the age of 58.
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Categories: 1967 Births, 2025 Deaths, British Composers, Alumni Of Goldsmiths, University Of London, British Male Classical Composers, Musicians From Kent, 20th-century English Classical Composers, 20th-century English Male Composers, 21st-century English Classical Composers, 21st-century English Male Composers
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