William Harris
An accomplished cellist, pianist, and vocalist, William has achieved significant recognition across multiple disciplines within just seven years of musical study. He Has been awarded a Fellowship Performance Diploma for ‘cello (2017), Licentiate Performance Diploma for piano, and an Associate Performance Diploma for voice. After obtaining a double First Class Honours degree in Music from Clare College, Cambridge (2022), where he was both a music and choral scholar, he went on to study at the Eastman School of Music in upstate New York. He is soon to embark on a Doctorate of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
As a soloist, William has performed Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme in Italy with the Orchestra d’Archi “Duchi d’Acquaaviva’ in Atri, Italy; has twice performed Dvorák’s Concerto in B minor; and both directed and performed C.P.E. Bach’s Concerto in A major in Cambridge and the Pays de Fayence, France. Since 2021 he has given a solo recital tour in Edinburgh, Scotland, and regularly performs solo recitals at the Music Cordiale Music Festival in both France and the U.K.. During his time at the University of Cambridge, he not only sang with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, but also performed with them as a cellist around the U.K., including works by Nico Muhly, Tarik O’Reagan, Brahms and Ola Gjeilo for cello and choir.
As a chamber musician, William has played at London venues including St John’s Smith Square and L.S.O. St. Luke’s, where he performed Gnessin’s Piano Trio ‘In Memory of Our Perished Child’, opus 63, as part of the Gresham College Lecture series. In Cambridge, he was part of a new music trio that participated in workshops and masterclasses with composers such as Judith Bingham, Graham Ross, and John Rutter. Alongside this, he was part of a Cambridge chamber music award scheme which received regular coaching from the Emerson Quartet and members of the Royal Academy of Music faculty. As a fellow of the 2023 Beethoven Academy at the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, he has performed at the Smithsonian Institute and other private venues around Washington D.C.. In the last three years, William has given multiple chamber music outreach and educational concerts at schools around the Rochester (N.Y.) area and performed multiple times in Eastman School of Music’s Honours Recital for Chamber Music.
Recent festival appearances include The Schiermonnikoog Festival in the Netherlands, Prussia Cove International Musicians Seminar, Apeldoorn Festival and Masterclasses, Sitka International Cello Seminar, and Music Cordiale Music Festival. His growing reputation as a cellist was further solidified when he won prizes at the Radda String Competition in New York (2024) and reached the semi-final stage of the Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition in Croatia in 2024.
William currently plays on a cello dating from 1750 made by ‘Finocchi of Perugia’ and a bow made by Eugène Sartory in Paris in 1905. This summer he is looking forward to returning to the Sitka International Music Festival along with performing in Portugal for the first time. In October he will join the Downey Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles to perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, opus 33