Richard Jenkinson’s musical education started from a young age with cello and piano studies in his native Derbyshire. Following scholarships he studied with Florence Hooton and William Pleeth and then won an entrance scholarship to study cello and conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  He graduated with Distinction and won the coveted Gold Medal following a performance of the Dvořák Concerto in the Barbican. He was also the recipient of the prize at the Vittorio Gui competition in Italy. Richard has been principal 'cello with both the Irish Chamber Orchestra and from 1998-2016 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2002 Richard and C.B.S.O. colleagues formed the Innovation Chamber Ensemble. This versatile group has played at many of the U.K.’s most important festivals and made a number of recordings. The group’s ICE on Fire was featured as Classic FM’s C.D. of the Week and also received significant airtime on BBC Radio 3. Owing to the diverse nature of the Innovation Chamber Ensemble they have made a number of further recordings of diverse repertoire on the Somm label. This includes previously unrecorded works by Edward Elgar, a disc of the Concerti armonici by Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer and piano concertos by Malcom Williamson, Gordon Jacob and Doreen Carwithen with the pianist Mark Bebbington. The ensemble has also made a feature of performing works written for Arnold Schoenberg’s Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Musical Performances). These have included performances conducted by Richard Jenkinson of Bruckner 7th Symphony (Deal, Petworth festivals), Mahler 4th Symphony (Birmingham, Keele, London, Deal, Petworth Festivals) and Das Lied von der Erde (Canterbury Cathedral). The group has also been featured on BBC 4 television.

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Since 2011 Richard has been the conductor and Musical Director of the Orchestra of St. John in Bromsgrove. During his tenure with this orchestra he has conducted complete cycles of the Beethoven Symphonies and Piano Concertos, choral works by Beethoven Choral Fantasy and 9th Symphony, Mozart Requiem, Misa Brevis, Schubert (masses), Haydn Nelson Mass, Little Organ Mass, Faure Requiem, Constant Lambert Rio Grande, Handel Messiah and Verdi Requiem. Soloists with O.S.J. have included; Anando Mukerjee - premiere of Ian Venables’ Venetian Songs, Claire Prewer - Britten Les Illuminations, Mahler 4, Wagner Liebestod, Benjamin Frith Rio Grande and Beethoven concertos, Mark Bebbington - Beethoven 4th piano concerto, David Le Page - Beethoven and Brahms concertos, Paul Barritt & Louise Williams - Mozart Sinfonia Concertante as well as featuring members of the orchestra including leader Charlotte Moseley - concertos by Elgar, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Sibelius and Vivaldi, Claire Burnell - Mozart Horn Concerto and Schumann Konzertstucke and Alastair Moseley - Copland and Mozart Clarinet Concertos.

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Since 2013 Richard Jenkinson has been the Musical Director of the British Police Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted the orchestra in yearly concerts at Symphony Hall Birmingham (2014-2020), the Cathedrals of Gloucester (Elgar Symphony no.2 in 2016), Hereford (Elgar Enigma Variations and Butterworth Shropshire Lad in 2014) and Worcester (2016 & 2017) as well as the BPSO’s regular prom concerts at Beacon Park, Staffordshire which are frequently attended by an audience of up to twenty thousand people. From 2016-2019 he was Music Director of the orchestra and choir of GKT Music Society at King’s College, conducting in London venues including Southwark Cathedral (Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky). Since September 2017 he has been the conductor of the Worcestershire Youth Orchestra. Recent performances with the W.Y.O. have included venues across the Midlands including Worcester Cathedral (December 2019). In May 2019 Richard Jenkinson conducted the combined forces of the B.P.S.O., massed choirs, troupes of bagpipers and fanfare trumpets at a charity Gala performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London in a concert which involved over six hundred musicians.