Llŷr Williams

Llŷr Williams (born Pentrebychan, Wrexham, Wales 1976) is a Welsh pianist.

Childhood

Llŷr Williams was born in 1976 in the village of Pentre Bychan in Wrexham, Wales.

He inherited an interest in opera from his father, and before the age of seven he was going to performances at Llandudno and Manchester. He started with the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, but by the age of ten he had developed a taste for those of Richard Wagner as well.

He began piano lessons at the age of seven. By the age eleven he had passed Grades I-VIII, all with Distinction.

Education

Williams was educated at Ysgol Hooson in Rhosllannerchrugog and Ysgol Morgan Llwyd in Wrexham, and then read music at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1995-1998, finishing with a First-Class degree and being awarded The Gibbs Prize in Music for outstanding performance in his final examinations. He attended the Royal Academy of Music as a postgraduate scholar and studied with Michael Dussek, Iain Ledingham, Hamish Milne, Julius Drake, and Irina Zaritskaya. He won every available prize at the Academy and received its highest academic award, the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music (DipRAM) (2000). Upon graduating he was elected to a Shinn Fellowship (2000-02), during the tenure of which he studied conducting and coaching singing.

Further awards

In May 2002 Williams was selected for representation by the Young Concert Artists Trust. In the same year he won the Critics' Prize at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2003 he joined the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. In 2004 he received an award of £20,000 from the Borletti Buitoni Trust, part of which he said he would spend on replacing the mechanics of his piano, which had become worn out through being played for six hours each day. In 2005 he received the Outstanding Young Artist Award from MIDEM Classique and the International Artist Managers' Association.

Recording

Williams appeared on the cover CD of the June 2005 issue of "BBC Music Magazine", performing works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, and Franz Schubert.

In 2006 he released his first commercial recording, Chopin's "Préludes", on the Quartz label.

His first commercial recording of songs, with Welsh baritone Paul Carey Jones, titled "Enaid - Songs of the Soul", was released in November 2007 on the Sain label.

Concert engagements

Early in 2007 Williams performed at eleven venues in the United States on his tour with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

He has performed at the Edinburgh International Festival every year since 2002. In the same year he was appointed an official accompanist for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, a role he continues to fulfil. He made his Proms début in 2005, playing Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jiri Belohlavek. Later that year he appeared in the Mozart Birthday Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in aid of the Young Concert Artists Trust and Amnesty International. He has also performed in the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Barbican Arts Centre, the Cheltenham Festival, Amersham Festival, and Gregynog Festival and he has given more than fifty concerts as part of the Live Music Now! scheme.

He has played at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and the Wigmore Hall in London, at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, St David's Hall, Cardiff, the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, Caird Hall, Dundee, Huntingdon Hall, Worcester, The Tabernacle, Machynlleth, and Stamford Arts Centre, as well as venues in Cambridge, Cannes, Guernsey, King's Lynn, Newbury, Swansea, Valencia (the Schumann concerto again), and Wasserburg am Inn (Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58).

He has appeared with other ensembles including the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, BBC Philharmonic, English Symphony Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Minnesota Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru (including performances of the complete Beethoven piano concertos), and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera.

Media coverage

Williams was the subject of a documentary film, "Y Pianydd – Llŷr Williams" on Sianel Pedwar Cymru (Channel Four Wales) (S4C). He has also appeared on S4C playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467, Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K310, and Fantasia No. 3 in D minor, K397.

ources and further information

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/cardiffsinger05/jury/accompanists.shtml BBC Singer of the World in Cardiff]
* [http://www.bbtrust.com/winners/llyr_williams.html Borletti Buitoni Trust]
* [http://www.s4c.co.uk/cerddoriaeth/e_llyrwilliams.shtml 'Llyr Williams - A Pianist of Genius' on the S4C website]
* [http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Culture&F=1&id=10282 News Wales: Wales orchestra tunes up for US tour]
* [http://www.dorsetforyou.com/media/pdf/m/n/Past_Project_Sound_of_Sunshine.pdf Dorset County Council Sound of Sunshine project]
*Artists' Biographies: Llŷr Williams, programme for the "Mozart Birthday Concert" (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Sunday 30 January 2005), p. 10
* [http://www.music.ox.ac.uk/award_schol_prize.html#gib Oxford University Faculty of Music Prize Information]
* [http://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/1998-9/weekly/051198/notc.htm Oxford University Gazette, Nov 1995] - Award of Gibbs Prize
* [http://www.sain.wales.com Sain website]