John Williams - guitar

Richard Harvey - flutes, pipes, whistles, reeds, mandolin, psaltery, percussion and other bits...

Experience a taste of real world music with John Williams and Richard Harvey. They have collaborated closely on various musical projects over the last twenty years. They share a deep interest and passion for the many musical cultures of the world and now at last John Williams (guitar) and Richard Harvey (playing over twenty instruments) have formed a duo. Their programme will include tunes from China to Madagascar and Africa, mesmeric “Kacapi-Suling” from Java, music from Latin America, tunes by the Irish harpist O'Carolan, popular dances from the 16th century by Praetorius, Medieval and Mediterranean music, etc. and the occasional work by contemporary composers.

Richard Harvey: Since graduating from the Royal College of Music in 1972, Richard Harvey has been a ubiquitous presence on the London music scene. His early forays into the professional world involved playing recorder and early woodwinds with his own group Gryphon and ancient music pioneers “Musica Reservata”. He has recorded for and collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Stanley Myers and numerous others. He has a collection of nearly 600 instruments from around the world (and plays most of them!). Richard's composition for guitar and orchestra, Concerto Antico, has been premiered in concert and recorded by John Williams with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Richard's musical career, starting with recorder lessons at the age of four, led him to first clarinet with the British Youth Symphony Orchestra and then on to the Royal College of Music before he was 20. He formed the internationally successful folk group Gryphon, with which he toured three continents, playing 30 different instruments and recording five albums. Now in his late 40s, Richard is a prolific composer, an occasional guest conductor and a virtuoso performer on a vast collection of instruments – blown, plucked, keyed, bowed, beaten and programmed. He has made several classical albums, including a Classical Record of the Year Italian Recorder Concertos , which demonstrate breathtaking fluency and exhilarating woodwind technique, and remains in the Gramophone Magazine's Top 100.

John Williams can be regarded as a foremost ambassador of the guitar. He was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1941. He was taught the guitar by his father, afterwards he attended summer courses with Segovia at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and studied music at the Royal College of Music in London. By the early 1960s he had performed in London, Paris, Madrid, Japan, Russia and the US: he has since toured many countries playing both solo and with orchestra and regularly on radio and TV. Williams records for SONY Classical.

Amongst his collaborations with other musicians, those with Julian Bream, Itzhak Perlman, Andre Previn, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth are particularly important. His other musical activities have included the groups SKY, John Williams and Friends, Attacca, The National Youth Jazz Orchestra with Paul Hart, Paco Pena, the Chilean group Inti Illimani, and various collaborations with Richard Harvey. John Williams maintains a wide-ranging interest in contemporary music - examples being his recording of music by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu with the London Sinfonietta, an album featuring the music of Peter Sculthorpe and Nigel Westlake called "From Australia", and his CD of music by the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, called "The Black Decameron", which includes Brouwer's Fourth Concerto. His many other recordings include several of Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez", concertos by Richard Harvey and Steve Gray, “Vivaldi Concertos", "The Great Paraguayan", "John Williams plays the Movies", "The Guitarist" - which includes his own “Aeolian Suite” with string orchestra, the "Arpeggione" sonata by Schubert and "Concerto, Op.30" by Giuliani with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, in which he plays an 1814 Guadagnini guitar. The highly successful "Profile" and "The Seville Concert", both directed by David Thomas for London Weekend Television's South Bank Show, are particular examples of John Williams enthusiasm for communicating music on television.