John Williams

John Williams can be regarded as a foremost ambassador of the guitar. He was taught by his father, afterwards attending summer courses with Segovia at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and studying music at the Royal College of Music in London. By the early 1960s he had performed in London, Paris, Madrid, Japan, Russia and the US: he has since toured the world playing both solo and with orchestra and regularly on radio and TV. John Williams records for SONY Classical.

Amongst his collaborations with other musicians, those with Julian Bream, Itzhak Perlman, Andre Previn, Cleo Laine, John Dankworth and Daniel Barenboim are particularly important. His other musical activities have included the groups SKY, John Williams and Friends, Attacca, The National Youth Jazz Orchestra with Paul Hart, Paco Pena, the Chilean group Inti-Illimani, and various collaborations with Richard Harvey.

In 2001 Sony Classical released his CD entitled “The Magic Box” in which his group “John Williams and Friends” presented adaptations of African music. This includes music from Senegal, Cameroon, Zaire, South Africa, Madagascar and Cape Verde. The group toured the U.K., United States, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia Germany, Spain and Italy. Recently, Sony Classical released his solo CD entitled “El Diablo Suelto”, a collection of Venezuelan music by composers including Figueredo, Sojo, Lauro, Fernandez and Gutierrez and “The Ultimate Guitar Collection”. The latest release from Sony Classical is a duo CD “Places Between” with jazz guitarist John Etheridge, recorded live in Dublin.

In 2007 he was presented with an Edison lifetime achievement award.