Grace Williams

There are at least two artists with this name: Grace Williams (1906-1977) was a Welsh composer, primarily of orchestral music. Williams was born on 19th February 1906 in Barry, and educated at Barry Grammar School and University College, Cardiff. After graduating with a B.Mus. in 1926, she went on to study with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music in London, and with Egon Wellesz in Vienna.

Grace Williams (1906-1977) was a Welsh composer, primarily of orchestral music.

Williams was born on 19th February 1906 in Barry, and educated at Barry Grammar School and University College, Cardiff. After graduating with a B.Mus. in 1926, she went on to study with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music in London, and with Egon Wellesz in Vienna.

She spent some time working as a teacher at the Camden School for Girls and at Southlands College of Education, but returned to Wales in 1946. Aside from work on BBC educational programmes, her primary occupation was as a composer, in which capacity she received commissions from the BBC, the Royal National Eisteddfod, and festivals at Cardiff and Swansea.

Williams' works are mainly for orchestra, with and without voices, though she also wrote songs. Her early work was influenced by such figures in English music as Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar, and to a certain extent Richard Strauss[/artist. She often found inspiration and material in folksong, as for example in her popular Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes. After 1955 her compositions gained a more mature and individual voice, starting with Penillion for Orchestra. This included a strong Welsh feeling (though without the earlier use of actual folksong).

Williams died in Barry on 10th February 1977 at the age of seventy.


2. Grace Williams is a singer, pianist, songwriter, and producer of Christian music.