MARK WILLIAMS

Mark Williams held the posts of Assistant Sub-Organist of St Paul's Cathedral in London and Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral School until April of 2006. Appointed in 2000, at the age of 21, he relinquished both posts in order to pursue his rapidly growing freelance career. He has been described as 'the shooting star of the international organ scene' (Berliner Zeitung 02/05) and is increasingly in demand as a performer throughout the UK and abroad. Educated in Bolton, Lancashire, he sang as a boy at Manchester Cathedral before going on to spend a year as Organ Scholar of Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. In 1997 he took up the organ scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was also later awarded an academic scholarship and where he worked regularly with the internationally-renowned choir under the direction of Dr Richard Marlow. He has recorded works of Elgar, Mendelssohn and Duruflé with the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge and has toured the United States, Far East, and several European countries as a recitalist and accompanist. Mark has appeared as a soloist and accompanist throughout London and the UK and has worked with a number of groups such as the King's Consort, Florilegium, the City of London Sinfonia and the Hanover Band as a continuo player. He is the Assistant Conductor of the City of London Choir, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a member of the Council of the Friends of Cathedral Music and since the year 2000 has been Organist-in-Residence at the International William Byrd Festival in Portland Oregon, his playing in the final concert there in 2005 causing one the music critic of the Oregonian newspaper to describe him as a 'boy wonder'.