John Williams AO OBE, (b. 1941), guitar virtuoso, had his first guitar lessons from his father, and from the age of eleven attended summer schools with the Spanish maestro Andrés Segovia in Italy. He studied piano at London's Royal College of Music from 1956 to 1959, and on graduating was invited to create a guitar department for the College. He gave his first professional guitar performance and recorded his first two albums in 1958 and has been performing and recording worldwide ever since. Renowned for his interpretation of the classical guitar repertoire, Williams is also a composer and has explored other musical genres including pop, jazz, world music, folk and rock. With Julian Bream, he won a Grammy award in 1973 for Best Chamber Music Performance; and in 1983 he won the BRIT award for Best Classical Recording. Williams has featured on numerous recordings, collaborated with artists such as Andre Previn, Cleo Laine and Itzhak Perlman, and played on the scores for films including The Deer Hunter and A Fish Called Wanda. Williams' memoir Strings Attached was published in 2012.
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© Polly Borland
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