John R. Williamson Music

John R. Williamson was born on October 31st, 1929 in Manchester. He studied composition under Richard Hall and piano with Hedwig Stein at the Royal Manchester College of Music and gained ARMCM, following this further with a B Mus (Dunelm), LRAM and FLCM externally. He also studied briefly with Lennox Berkeley. Until retirement, he taught music in a variety of schools and colleges in England and Wales.

His compositions include five piano concerti, an extensive amount of solo piano music, twenty five sonatas for many combinations, chamber music, orchestral pieces, a symphony and a ‘Cello Concerto.

In the realm of song, his settings of Housman, and other poets, include some 140 songs,with more than fifty recorded on the Dunelm Records label being of great significance in his musical output.

His works have been performed in North Wales, Chester, Manchester and London. His style of composition makes frequent use of pentatonic and palindromic harmonic and melodic idioms.

His works are published with Da Capo Music Ltd., of Manchester, Curiad of North Wales, Animus of Cumbria (organ works), Piper of Barrhill, Ayrshire (woodwind music) and Recital Music (double bass pieces) of Templecombe, Somerset.

John passed away on 13 February 2015 at the age of 84.