Cordelia Williams

Since becoming the Piano Winner of BBC Young Musician 2006, Cordelia Williams has continued to build an international career as ‘one of the outstanding pianists of her generation’. She has given recital and concerto performances throughout Great Britain, as well as in France, Italy, Thailand, China, America, Kenya and the Gulf States, and always likes to introduce the music to her audience. She has recently been awarded 1stprize at the
Concours International de Piano in Aix-en-Provence and 2nd prize at the Dudley International Piano Competition. Her first CD, featuring Schubert’s complete Impromptus for SOMM Recordings, was released in July 2013.

Solo performance highlights for Cordelia have included a Wigmore Hall debut, as well as concerto appearances with orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia and The Northern Sinfonia (first with conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier and subsequently with Thomas Zehetmair). The last two years have included her debut recitals at the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Hall in London, and Beijing Concert Hall, China, while 2012 brought concerto appearances with the London Mozart Players and Northern Sinfonia, a recital at the Purcell Room, London, and concerts in Salzburg, Provence and America. Plans for this year also include recitals in Norway, Switzerland and the south of France.

Cordelia is a passionate chamber musician - in May 2008 she appeared with the Endellion String Quartet and has since performed with the Fitzwilliam and Maggini String Quartets and principal members of the London Mozart Players. Cordelia studied at Chethams School of Music, Manchester, and then Clare
College, Cambridge, where she gained a First in Theology. She completed a Masters in Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied with Joan Havill, and was then invited to become a Fellow of the Guildhall School. Alongside her performing career, Cordelia runs Cafe Muse, an innovative series of events bringing classical music out of the concert hall and into the relaxed setting of bars and brasseries. She hopes to attract a new audience to classical music, especially people of her own generation.