Howard Williams

One of Britain’s most experienced conductors on the international platform, Howard Williams has covered a formidable range of work both in the opera house and concert hall. His exceptionally large symphonic repertoire is matched in the theatre by nearly a hundred opera and ballet titles and a love of orchestral and choral collaboration.

In the UK, he has conducted the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Symphony, as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Bournemouth Symphony and Sinfonietta, English Chamber Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Concert Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra. He has conducted at the BBC Proms and at the Edinburgh, Leeds, Bath and Brighton Festivals, as at festivals in Budapest, Hong Kong, and throughout France and Spain.

In Europe Williams has appeared in the concert seasons of – amongst other orchestras – the Austrian Radio Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Belgian Radio Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, Slovak Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Hungarian Radio Symphony, Budapest Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de Lyon, Orchestre de Strasbourg, Orchestre Symphonique de Montpellier, Orchestre de Picardie, RTE Symphony Orchestra, Dublin and the Portuguese National Symphony Orchestra.

After studying the piano with Ronald Smith and the violin with Clarence Myerscough, Howard Williams was a student at Oxford and Liverpool Universities and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Joining English National Opera as repétiteur and then Chorus Master he went on to conduct eleven operas for ENO, including four new productions and the world première of Iain Hamilton’s Anna Karenina. At the same time he conducted Opera Factory in its opening London seasons, firstly with the sensational new production of Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy and then to première the reduced orchestration of Tippett’s The Knot Garden, both televised by Channel 4. His subsequent premières have included his own completion of Bizet’s largest opera, Ivan IV, (now recorded on the NAïVE label), Brian Howard’s Inner Voices, David Ward’s The Snow Queen, Bernard Stevens’ The Shadow of the Glen (available on ALBANY) and the première recording of Frank Bridge’s The Christmas Rose for PEARL.

With the Baroque Orchestra of English Bach Festival he has conducted productions at Covent Garden of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Purcell’s Fairy Queen and Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s Oreste. With them he also took to Madrid a production with historical instruments of Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe. Williams’ work in the theatre has also included guest appearances with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, as well as with the Dutch National Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre and Hamburg Ballet.

Following his appointment in 1989 as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Pécs Symphony Orchestra, Hungary, Howard Williams devoted a significant amount of his time to working with the leading orchestras in this country. Williams has been awarded an Artisjus award for his services to new Hungarian music, and the Bartók Medal for services to Hungarian music abroad.

On leaving Pécs in 2000, Williams was appointed to the new post of Head of Conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, as well as becoming Artistic Director of the Oxford Orchestra da Camera and of the Choir of the 21st Century in London. Since 2013 he has been Musical Director of the Sinfonia of Cambridge.

In the concert hall Williams has conducted world premières of works by Tippett, Holloway, Schurmann, Cowie, Smalley and Ligeti among many others. Thus contemporary works are a normal and essential part of his programming, although his commitment to authentic performances of Baroque and Classical music is always in evidence. His lifelong passion for the choral and oratorio repertoire, too, remains as strong as ever.
His six years’ in Cardiff enabled Howard to explore and develop his attitude to the teaching of conductors. He is now Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London, a regular guest tutor at the London Conducting Workshop and is much in demand as a trainer of conductors and orchestras in the Far East and Australia.