Mark Williams
(Assistant Conductor and Principal Accompanist)
Mark Williams was appointed Assistant Conductor and Principal Accompanist to the City of London Choir in 2001.
Mark has been described as ‘the shooting star of the international organ scene’ (Berliner Zeitung) and is increasingly in demand as one of the UK’s most exciting young musicians. Appointed Assistant Organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and Director of Music at St. Paul’s Cathedral School in 2000 at the age of 21, he relinquished both posts in April of 2006 in order to pursue his rapidly growing freelance career.
Educated in Bolton, Lancashire, he sang as a boy at Manchester Cathedral before going on to spend a year as Organ Scholar of Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. In 1997, he took up the organ scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was also later awarded an academic scholarship and where he worked regularly with the internationally renowned choir under the direction of Dr Richard Marlow. He has recorded works of Elgar, Mendelssohn and Duruflé with the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge and has toured the United States, the Far East and several European countries as a recitalist and accompanist.
Mark has appeared as a soloist and accompanist throughout London and the UK and has worked with a number of groups such as The King’s Consort, The Sixteen, the City of London Sinfonia and the Hanover Band as a continuo player. He has worked as opera repetiteur, harpsichordist and pianist, and has led masterclasses in choral training, singing and organ performance in the UK, the USA and Africa. He was appointed Principal Conductor of English Chamber Opera in 2007, and his debut in March 2007 with Don Giovanni in Ireland met with great acclaim. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a member of the Council of The Friends of Cathedral Music and since the year 2000 has been Organist-in-Residence at the International William Byrd Festival in Portland Oregon. His playing in the final concert there in summer 2005 caused one music critic to describe him as a ‘boy wonder’ in the Oregonian newspaper. Recent engagements have included concerts in St Thomas Fifth Avenue, New York, Casa da Música Oporto, York Minster and the Marienkirche in Lübeck, and future plans include concerts in Mexico, Spain, France and Zambia.
• The Choir
• Artistic Director – Hilary Davan Wetton |
