Williamson is a man who quietly, meticulously, does his own thing. A colourist and sculptor at the keyboard. A composer. An imaginer of projects steering wide of the obvious… (Ates Orga)
Nathan Williamson composes music of extremes, ranging from complex, virtuosic chamber works and songs, to music written specially for young performers, amateur instrumental ensembles and choirs, to opera and incidental theatre music.
Recent works include The Quest, to a libretto by Megg Nicol, commissioned by London Youth Opera, to be premiered at the Shaw Theatre in December 2024 by around 45 young singers, from across London, on stage in fully professional production under musical director Alastair Chivers and director Madeleine Allegra Brooks. Quartet Black (2023) a Britten-Pears Arts Commission for the Heath Quartet, was premiered at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival. Nathan has written two virtuosic song-cycles for voice and piano – The Little that was Once a Man (texts by Bryan Heiser) was premiered in 2019 by James Gilchrist and the composer and recorded in 2022, and Grey and Green are all my Light (texts by Robert Jellicoe) was premiered by Jonathan Eyers in 2023 – both song-cycles have been widely performed with the composer at the piano.
Other recent works include a major new Sonata for cello and piano commissioned and premiered by Charles Watt, and Crystal, a mammoth single movement work for piano quartet written during the pandemic and premiered by the Rossetti Ensemble in 2021.
Nathan has been commissioned several works specially for amateur and young performers, including the short opera Machine Dream, (Mahogany Opera Group ‘Snappy Operas’ project), which has been staged in dozens of primary schools across the UK, and instrumental works for Pro Corda, Waveney and Blyth Arts, Rugby School, and Chamber Music 2000. Nathan’s music for piano, which he regularly performs in recital, includes a number of works commissioned as personal tributes or to mark special occasions, including Intermezzo (2012), Flowers of the Field – a lament (2013), Variations on a Theme of Cole Porter (2014), and Dreams (2016).
Nathan has also been commissioned by Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra, Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Bury St. Edmund’s Cathedral, Mariko Brown and Julian Jacobson, Endymion, and Pushkin House. In 2010 he conducted three performances of his first opera, A Fountain Sealed, to a libretto by Thomas Walton. His work Trans-Atlantic Flight of Fancy is featured on NOW Ensemble’s album Dreamfall (New Amsterdam Records) and Homecoming, a commission for violinist Piotr Szewczyk as part of his Violin Futura project, was recorded on Navona Records following dozens of performances by Szewczyk and other violinists worldwide.
Recent performing highlights include an odyssey of British song with tenor James Gilchrist, culminating in a three-volume recording project for SOMM-Recordings, ‘100 Years of British Song’. The discs included premiere recordings of Holst, Maconchy, Carwithen, John Woolrich, Geoffrey Poole, and Nathan’s own work, as well as songs by Bridge, Clarke, Gurney, Bush, Rawsthorne, Dickinson and Dring. Awarding its ‘Recording of the Month’ accolade, Limelight described Volume I as a penetrating, frequently revelatory start to a promising new series. Reviews from The Gramophone followed: James Gilchrist’s contribution is past praise in its probing range of expression and unfailing sensitivity to the text. What’s more, he enjoys immaculate support throughout from Nathan Williamson, who also provides a stimulating booklet essay. Glowingly realistic sound and full texts boost the desirability of a most impressive release… Of Volume II MusicWeb International said: It is redundant to declare that this is a superlative CD. Considering the two performers, the technical prowess of SOMM Recordings, the excellent liner notes and the imaginative and wide-ranging programme, it could be nothing else.
Following these recordings Nathan founded The Art of British Song in September 2021, a longer-term project celebrating British song, its legacy and its future, through performance, education, and the development and funding of new work. Since then Nathan and James Gilchrist have given recitals at Snape Maltings, The Alwyn Music Festival, the English Music Festival, and Surrey University, before staging a series of ‘Salon Recitals’ in the summer 2022, presenting British song in its more ‘natural’ environment of the domestic setting. This theme continues with the premiere of Nathan’s new song-cycle, Grey and Green are all my Light, written for the baritone Jonathan Eyers, which took place at Reydon Hall in April 2023.
Nathan’s enthusiasm for British music has also been reflected in recent solo piano projects. An exploration of the Sonatas and Nocturnes by Malcolm Lipkin, and the 24 Preludes and Fugues by Christopher Brown, both culminated in 2023 with the release of premiere recordings of this repertoire for Lyrita. 2022 also saw Nathan give the first performance for some 20 years of Thomas Pitfield’s First Piano Concerto at Aldeburgh in his own arrangement for chamber orchestra commissioned by the Pitfield Trust, as well as several concerts and broadcasts focussed on the music of Doreen Carwithen in her centenary year. Prior to the pandemic Nathan’s CD of British 20th century solo piano works for SOMM, Colour and Light, was chosen as Album of the Month in International Piano Quarterly: ‘No praise could be high enough of Williamson’s performances… Whether in the dream-world of the Delius Nocturne or in the fire and ice of the Herschel Hill Toccata, Williamson unearths musical treasure beyond price’ (Bryce Morrison).
Nathan studied with Malcolm Singer and Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and at Yale University, where his principal teachers were Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick, Michael Friedmann and Joan Panetti, to whom he was appointed deputy on her innovative ‘Hearing’ programme of ear-training and aural analysis. Further postgraduate studies followed with Robert Saxton at Oxford University, before a period of teaching at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Nathan now lives in the town of Southwold, on the Suffolk coast, where he founded and directs the Southwold Music Trust, seeking to make music a central part of the local community through education and outreach initiatives with musicians of all abilities, and staging concerts in local venues. He is married to Daisy, senior music therapist at Suffolk Music Therapy Services, and together with their two young children they love nothing more than heading straight out onto the beaches and beautiful countryside which surround their home.