Derek Leslie Williams (born 20 September 1952) is a New Zealand-born Scottish composer, orchestrator, conductor and record producer. He was awarded a doctorate by the University of Edinburgh under Nigel Osborne and Peter Nelson for composition of his opera, Wilde, and he is a Fellow of Trinity College London. Williams is a civil rights activist also known for his 'Save Sibelius' campaign in the United Kingdom (2012–2013). Since 2007, he has taught Composition and Orchestration at University of Edinburgh Music Department. He is also Chair of the Wagner Society of Scotland, a member of the International Association of Wagner Societies.
Career
Williams first came to public notice in 1974, when he founded the New Zealand School of Music through which he established the first non-university tertiary level qualification for conductors of music in the Southern Hemisphere. As arranger, orchestrator, conductor and musician commissioned by international artists Caroline O'Connor, Sir Robert Helpmann, Torvill and Dean, Grace Knight, Frank Bennett, Debbie Newsome, Sir Howard Morrison, and prominent Australian screen composers Martin Armiger, Guy Gross, and Antony Partos, Williams is also known for his reorchestrations of tracks from hit records. His commissions have been performed in the Royal Albert Hall, Garrick Theatre and Kings Place (London), at the Sydney Opera House and Hamer Hall, Melbourne, Australia, and at the Montreux Jazz Festival. As a chorister, he performed in the 640 voice Third International Choral Festival at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts under Robert Shaw with Peter Godfrey's Auckland University Festival Choir, as well as at The White House, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the United Nations and at Westminster Abbey and King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Williams was the orchestrator and conductor of the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra for Guy Gross's score for Stephan Elliott's Frauds, starring Phil Collins and Hugo Weaving, and was choral and instrumental arranger of Gross’s score for Elliott’s Oscar winning film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He was the orchestrator and conductor for Martin Armiger's score for The Crossing, starring Russell Crowe, and was orchestrator for Antony Partos' score for Crush, winner of Best Film Score at New Zealand Film and TV Awards. Williams was arranger and conductor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation multi-platinum album Vince Jones & Grace Knight – Come In Spinner from the ABC miniseries Come In Spinner for record producer Martin Armiger, which won the ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album. He was producer, arranger and conductor for Frank Bennett's EMI Music album Cash Landing, nominated at ARIA Music Awards of 1999 for Best Adult Contemporary Album. He was composer for Ruaridh M. Turner's The Beast in the Storm, which won Order of Merit in the Indie Fest and Best Action/Thriller/SciFi – Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards. In 2021 he was conductor of the Linlithgow String Orchestra and Abbotsford String Orchestra.
Biography
Born 1952 of Agnes ('Nancy') Williams (née Anderson) of Bathgate, Scotland (office clerk) and New Zealander Edward ('Ted') Williams (farmer). Early childhood in Gisborne, New Zealand and Rotorua, studied at Rosmini College (Auckland) 1964–1970. Studied Music 1971–74 at University of Auckland under Charles Nalden, winning the Professor Hollinrake Memorial Scholarship and Senior Scholarship Award as BMus graduate. Studied piano with Mary Nathan, Milford. Admitted Fellow of Trinity College, London in 1977.
Descended from Henry Williams, a missionary, and Marianne Coldham, an educator, Williams' grandfather, Claud Williams, was a noted explorer of the Libyan Egyptian desert during World War 1 who was awarded the Military Cross for his Report on the Military Geography of the North-Western Desert of Egypt (War Office Handbook), used by the Long Range Desert Group in the Tobruk campaign against Rommel. In 2010, the Royal Geographical Society co-opted Williams as family representative for its publication of Claud's autobiographical memoir, Light Car Patrols 1916–19, and he was guest speaker at the 2013 book launch.