Gareth Williams (composer)

Gareth Patrick Williams (born 1977) is an Irish composer based at Edinburgh College of Art.

The Song, the Stars and the Blossom (text from an interview with Dennis Potter) appeared in 2014 and Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence (Librettist Anna Chatterton) in 2015.

With the support of The Wellcome Trust, he created Breath Cycle (with libretto by David James Brock) at the Respiratory ward at Gartnavel Royal Hospital, where he made songs and opera specifically for patients with cystic fibrosis.

The material was bespoke to lung capacity, range, and ability, and the effects of singing on respiratory health are being monitored and measured.

He returned to Scottish Opera in 2021 to create Breath Cycle II, working with people with Long Covid.

In 2015, Hirda, A New Opera for Shetland, co-composed with Shetland Fiddler, Chris Stout, and produced by NOISE, toured Shetland and performed in Glasgow and Edinburgh[13][14] From 2016 to 2018, with writer Oliver Emanuel, Williams created the 306 Trilogy, a set of three music theatre works about the British men shot for cowardice in World War 1, commissioned and produced by National Theatre of Scotland, 14 - 18 Now, Horsecross Theatre, Stellar Quines, Red Note Ensemble.

In 2022, as part of Event Scotland's Year of StoriesWilliams created 'Songs from the Last Page' - a singing/songwriting project that transformed/repurposed the final lines of classic and contemporary Scottish novels into new songs written for the composer's own voice.