John Williams

John Williams was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1941 and moved to London with his family in 1952. He was taught the guitar by his father from the age of five, afterwards attending summer courses with Segovia at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and studying music at the Royal College of Music in London from 1956-59. Having already played in London, Paris and Madrid he toured Russia in 1962 and in 1963 began regular tours of Japan and the United States.

Since then he has toured widely, both solo and with orchestra and is heard often on radio and television. The complete collection of his 58 CDs (and one DVD) for Sony/CBS was issued in 2016. In 2007 he was presented with an Edison lifetime achievement award.

John Williams has collaborated with many musicians including Julian Bream, Itzhak Perlman, André Previn, Cleo Laine, John Dankworth and Daniel Barenboim. Other musical activities have included the group Sky, collaborations with Richard Harvey, a duo with John Etheridge and the music of Latin America and Africa. He recently performed and recorded a DVD with the Palestinian duo Sabil - an example of the particular importance to him of the role of the guitar outside the confines of the purely European tradition.

In 2010 he started his own label, JCW Recordings, with the latest release being Paseo.