Edward Aneurin Williams (20 August 1921 – 8 December 2013) was a British composer and electronic music pioneer, best known for his work on the BBC Television series Life on Earth, and as the creator of Soundbeam.

His father Iolo Aneurin Williams was a poet, journalist, folk song collector and politician, and his American mother Francion Elinor Dixon was the musical daughter of a Colorado cattle rancher.

[3][4] His career as British documentary composer began in 1948, and his many scores included 24 shorts for British Transport Films alone, including Open House (1951 - promoting the use of London Transport bus services to country houses),[5][6] and one of the most famous of them, 1957's Journey into Spring, directed by Ralph Keene and portraying the arrival of spring in Selborne.

[11] The BBC's Life On Earth documentary, first broadcast in 1979, heralded a new genre of nature programming, and the avant-garde and pioneering music was pivotal to the programme's impact.

[11] It featured VCS 3 synthesisers alongside flute, harp, clarinet, strings, percussion, providing an evocative counterpoint to the visuals and Attenborough's commentary.

[1] In 1996 he collaborated with horn player Pip Eastop with an Arts Council research development grant to explore "the possibilities of controlling computer-driven transformation of sound during live, partially improvised performance".

[14] His music from the 1957 documentary Journey Into Spring was re-fashioned into A Selborne Suite for chamber ensemble and narrator (with words by Laurie Lee), and was first performed in 2003.