FULL BIOGRAPHY (1000 words)

COMPOSITION

“Williams has a spectacularly evolved gift for tapping into a universally shared pathos that speaks to an audience…” (Limelight Magazine, April 2015)

Natalie Williams is an Australian-born composer and United States Permanent Resident. Her works are hailed by critics as “richly expressive and deeply poignant… devastatingly impassioned… with profundity and depth,” “a beautifully direct aesthetic.” Her music has been commissioned and performed by international ensembles, including the Atlanta Opera, Omaha Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney, Adelaide, West Australian, Queensland and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, Musica Viva, the Australia Ensemble, Adelaide Baroque, the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide Youth Orchestras, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Goldner String Quartet, The Muses Trio, Ensemble Liaison, the Pavel Haas and Doric String Quartets, and British cello soloist Natalie Clein.

Major premieres include an award-winning string octet "Saudade" commissioned in 2015 as the inaugural new work for the Hildegard Project, a multi-year commissioning plan initiated by Musica Viva Australia, featuring women composers. The piece was premiered by the Pavel Haas Quartet (Czech Republic) and the Doric Quartet (UK), at the Musica Viva International Chamber Music Festival at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2020 she received grant funding from ABC Classic to compose two new chamber works for radio broadcast. Natalie was twice commissioned by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for new works featuring in their Australian Music series, in 2017 and 2018.

Natalie Williams’ orchestral works have received critical acclaim including the premiere of her first symphony "Our Don" by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on 14 August, 2014; a multimedia orchestral tribute to Sir Donald Bradman AC. "Composer Natalie Williams’ portrait of the Test cricketer [Sir Donald Bradman AC] is as rewarding as the sound of leather on willow, after a delightful performance..." (The Guardian, 15 August, 2014). Her orchestral output includes multiple orchestral commissions from ensembles including the Australian Symphony Orchestras, and multiple Australian Youth Orchestras. In May 2015 her doctoral dissertation was chosen for performance within the American Composers Orchestra, EarShot reading sessions with the Berkeley Symphony and was also chosen for the Omaha Symphony New Music Symposium in 2012, mentored by maestro William Bolcom. She was the youngest Australian composer commissioned by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra to compose a Fanfare for their 75th anniversary concerts in 2003. In 2005 Natalie was commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Cybec Foundation for a new work in the Metropolis New Music series, which premiered to critical acclaim.

PERFORMANCES

"... a rich tapestry of orchestral colour." (The Advertiser, 24 March 2003)

Her music has been championed by performers and toured throughout Europe (Stephan Ammer and Gintaras Janusevicius, Pno, and Peter Handsworth, Cl), Australia (Mark Kruger, Pno) and the United States (Johye Change Sung, the Terminus Ensemble). She has worked with composers; Philip Glass, William Bolcom, Peter Sculthorpe, Brett Dean, Narcis Bonet, Claude Baker, Don Freund, Robert Beaser, Brenton Broadstock, Aaron Travers and Graeme Koehne, and conductors; Martyn Brabbins, Joana Carniero, Thomas Wilkins, James Judd, Benjamin Northey, Kevin Field and Professor John Hopkins. Her output includes music for film, theatre, chamber, dance and orchestra.
 
International composition festivals that have presented her music include, the Florida State University International New Music Festival, the International Trumpet Guild new music recitals program, the Midwest Composers Symposium, the Society of Composers Inc., national conference and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Metropolis New Music series. International commissions include a new work for performance at the 17th World Saxophone Conference in Strasbourg and a wind symphony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Sydney Conservatorium in 2015.

TEACHING

"Williams’s sense of depiction is delightful..."  (Fanfare Magazine, Sep 2015)

Academic teaching positions include; the School of Music at the Australian National University, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, and teaching assistantships at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and the Faculty of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Natalie completed her Doctoral Degree in Composition at the Jacobs School of Music as a four-year doctoral fellow. Further academic training was completed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2016 (music theory pedagogy), the Eastman School of Music in 2014 (music theory pedagogy summer school), with the UK Society for Music Analysis at Durham University in 2010, and studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique (Paris) summer school in July 2007, with the European American Musical Alliance. She is a fully represented composer at the Australian Music Centre, a member of the American Composers Forum and the Australasian Performing Rights Association. In 2019 Natalie became a Fellowship Member of the Higher Education Academy (UK). In February of 2019 she studied in Berlin at the Academy of Cultural Diplomacy.

Natalie gave keynote presentations on post-tonal music theory at the Melbourne Music Analysis Summer School in 2016 and 2017. Also in 2017 Natalie directed a pivotal research conference, Women in the Creative Arts, at the Australian National University, addressing gender diversity within the creative sector. Attended by over 110 delegates, the conference featured presentations, recitals and panels by scholars and performers from across the globe and initiated two subsequent international conferences at Monash University (2018) and the University of Western Australia (2019).

In 2015 Natalie was a visiting research scholar at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, awarded an International Collaborative Research Award. This residency enabled the creation of a new musical work, featured in the Sydney Conservatorium Wind Ensemble's 2015 concert series, "Women in Music" conducted by Professor John Lynch. Natalie also serves on the selection committee for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She served as the Student Chapters Coordinator from 2014-18 on the executive board of the Society of Composers Inc. (USA), and was the Advocacy portfolio board member of the International Alliance for Women in Music from 2015-17. She currently serves as a peer assessor on arts council panels for state and national grant bodies within Australia.

 AWARDS

“From its first few notes, the beauty of this work hits the listener…” (Limelight Magazine, Sep 2022)

Winner of the 2018 Albert H. Maggs Award for Composition, Natalie’s chamber piece, “Black Summer” reflects on the devastation of Australia’s 2020 wildfires. A two-time winner of the Atlanta Opera Competition (2013 and 2015), and winner of the Iron Composer competition (2010), Natalie was the joint winner of the inaugural Schueler Awards for Orchestral Composition, resulting in “Whistleblower”, an overture commissioned for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and premiered to an audience of 30,000 in February 2007. Natalie received the Judith Lang-Zaimont prize for composition from the International Alliance of Women in Music (2016) and the APRA/Australian Music Centre state award for the Australian Capital Territory for Best Instrumental Piece (2016). She won the Region 5 division of the ASCAP/SCI composer awards in July 2011 (United States) and the Chicago-based, Renovo String Orchestra composition competition for performance in their 2012 season. Other prizes include the Australasian Performing Rights Association, Professional Development Awards (Classical Music category) in 2006, the Lyrebird Commission from the British Music Society in Melbourne (2006) and an overseas study scholarship from the Opus 50 Charitable Trust (Melbourne).

QUALIFICATIONS