Biography


 

Celebrated guitarist and composer, William Lovelady, has written for some of the world’s leading guitarists including Slava and Leonard Grigoryan, Xuefei Yang, Craig Ogden and Amanda Cook. His guitar and choral music have been performed world-wide, as well as being frequently played on Radio 3 and Classic FM. He has written and worked with musicians as diverse as Julian Lloyd Webber, Art Garfunkel, Shankar, and Hugh Masekela. He has had two top-ten hits in the commercial industry.

Bill also writes for television. He has done several David Attenborough programmes and was nominated for an Emmy for the National Geographic Film, “Flying Devils”. His film music includes the Disney film, “African Lovestory” and the film “Here Lies” which won Best European Independent Film in 2015.

Among other commissions he has written a piece for solo guitar for the memorial of the Omagh bomb and a Cantata, to the words of Psalm 104, for the Duke of Edinburgh’s 75th birthday which is regularly performed at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. An arrangement, by James Vivian, for 4 voices was performed at the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral on April 17th 2021. He has also written a Mass first performed at Westminster Cathedral as well as many chamber pieces. His "Concerto for Guitar, Violin and String Orchestra" was premièred in 2015 by Stratford-upon-Avon’s Orchestra of the Swan with soloists Craig Ogden and Tamsin Waley-Cohen. The English Chamber Orchestra commissioned a Guitar Concerto with Craig Ogden.   “Isolation Songs”,  was premièred, as part of Music in Country Churches, in Norfolk in July in the presence of the King, then Prince of Wales. The London première with Craig Ogden and The English Chamber Orchestra took place at Cadogan Hall on 6 November 2022.