In 2021, the celebrated guitarist and composer William Lovelady wrote a stunning new work for Alison smith titled Rame Head, inspired by the stunning local headland and sea, which she performed the world premiere of at her Guitarfest concert
We have been very honoured the last couple of years that Bill arranged some of his beautiful compositions specially for the course ensemble to play as part of the repertoire pieces at the weekend. We are thrilled that he is going to arrange another of his pieces for the Guitarfest 2025 course ensemble to play.
William Lovelady writes 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 Ogdon and Tamsin Waley-Cohen. www.williamlovelady.co.uk
