New Zealand-born trumpeter and conductor Bede Williams originally studied as an ABRSM International Scholar at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He is an acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and an experienced artistic researcher and festival director. He is currently Deputy Director of Music at the University of St Andrews where in addition to varied lecturing and conducting he leads a team of outreach, administrative and teaching staff.
Since 2019 he has served as director of StAMP (St Andrews Music Participation) Brass, a major outreach programme to reinvigorate brass playing in schools and communities across Fife. His primary research interest is in Performance Studies, and he has contributed to numerous interdisciplinary projects in the arts and sciences, both nationally and internationally. In 2023 he became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and in 2024 Chairperson of The Glasgow Barons, a multi-genre music charity working in Govan.
Education
Bede’s musical roots are in brass bands. In New Zealand, he became a member of the Hamilton Auxiliary Brass Band at age 9, before later joining the Cambridge Municipal Brass Band. He was taught by Colin Smith and won many national titles and was for a time concurrently principal trumpet of the National Youth Orchestra and principal cornet of the National Youth Brass Band of New Zealand. Before commencing study at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, he spent a year as a member of the New Zealand Army Band. In 2003 he accepted an ABRSM International Scholarship to study trumpet at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he also completed an undergraduate exchange at the California Institute of the Arts. In 2008 he was a member of Pierre Boulez’s Lucerne Festival Academy, and in 2009/10 held an Emergent Leaders’ Fellowship at the RCS, drawing praise from The Herald as an “incisive,” “visionary,” and “sensitive” musician. Having conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, and the Auckland Philharmonia as a student, in 2011 he graduated from the RCS with a Masters in Conducting. Since graduating he has attended international conducting masterclasses with Martyn Brabbins (Orkney), Christopher Seaman (Auckland), Benjamin Zander (London), Jorma Panula (Amsterdam), Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Leonard Grin (Estonia) and Sian Edwards (St Andrews). As a trumpeter, he has performed in masterclasses with Howard Snell, Hakan Hardenberger and Bengt Eklund among many others.
