Return visit October 1-2, 2015, Killian Hall
Accompanied by pianist Paula Fan in a program of music by MIT Composers: Peter Child and Charles Shadle. The Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams made his debut with Welsh National Opera and has since appeared in sixty operatic roles. He has performed at major venues in North and South America, Australia, Hong Kong, and most European countries. He is renowned as a fine exponent of contemporary music.
About the Artists
Jeremy Huw Williams
The Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, at the National Opera Studio, and with April Cantelo. He made his debut with Welsh National Opera as Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and has since appeared in sixty operatic roles. As a principal singer with Welsh National Opera he appeared at the opening night of the Wales Millennium Centre, and received the inaugural Sir Geraint Evans Award from the Welsh Music Guild, given annually to a person or persons who have made a significant contribution to Welsh music in any one year or recent years: ‘there has been an unanimous decision that the first award should be made to baritone Jeremy Huw Williams in recognition of not only his performing ability but also for the tremendous support that he has given to Welsh composers and their music in recent years’.
He has given performances at major venues in North and South America, Australia, Hong Kong, and most European countries and recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, and at many major music festivals. He has appeared with dozens of orchestras in Wales, Scotland, England, France, and Spain among others.
A renowned exponent of contemporary music, he has commissioned much new music and given premieres of works by Alun Hoddinott, William Mathias, John Tavener, Michael Berkeley, Paul Mealor, Julian Phillips, Richard Causton, Mark Bowden, and Huw Watkins. Williams frequently records for BBC Radio 3 (in recital, and with the BBC NOW, CBSO, BBC SO, BBC SSO, BBC Philharmonic and BBC CO), and has made many commercial recordings, including eight solo discs of songs.
Paula Fan
Pianist Paula Fan has appeared as soloist and chamber musician on five continents. As the first accompanist-coach to be invited to an emerging China, she performed on the earliest concerts of Western chamber music and art song to be heard there for decades. She has recorded twenty albums and has broadcast for the BBC, National Public Radio, Radio Television China and international stations from Bosnia to Australia. As one of the first recipients of the doctorate in Collaborative Piano, she has lectured on the subject worldwide.
A committed Earthwatch volunteer, Paula Fan is passionate about bridging the gap between the scientific and musical worlds. She is a founding member of the Solar Storytellers, a solar powered piano trio that has performed on the National Mall in Washington DC, and at the venerable Aspen Science Center. She lives in Arizona, where she is Principal Pianist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and is Regents’ Professor Emerita of Music and the first Senior Fellow of the interdisciplinary Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry at the University of Arizona.