Director, writer and composer Bill Barclay is Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and Music Before 1800, NYC’s oldest early music presenter. He was Director of Music at London’s Shakespeare’s Globe from 2012-2019.
Barclay has written and directed two dozen original works of concert-theatre for the world’s leading ensembles. Last season featured The National Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Chicago Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, United Strings of Europe, Chautauqua and Caramoor Festivals, and the Harlem Chamber Players.
Broadway and West End credits as Music Supervisor include Farinelli and the King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Sir Mark Rylance.
A ‘personable polymath’ (London Times), Barclay has debuted commissions for the LA Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Silkroad, City of London Sinfonia, and The Boston Symphony Orchestra (five productions). He has created work for some of the world’s most iconic spaces: The Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, the Barbican, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe, The Southbank Centre, Hampton Court Palace, and Washington National Cathedral.
As a composer, Barclay’s original music has been performed in 197 countries, 42 US states, for President Obama, the British Royal Family, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Calais. He recently created a new Four Seasons Recomposed for Max Richter on period instruments with the puppetry masters Gyre & Gimble. He conducted King of Ghosts on tour with City of London Sinfonia, and the USACH Orchestra in Chile.
Collaborators include the conductors Marin Alsop, Andris Nelsons, Dame Jane Glover, Charles Dutoit, Seigi Ozawa, JoAnn Falletta, Bramwell Tovey, Gianandrea Noseda, Harry Christophers, Trevor Pinnock, Louis Langree and Sakari Oramo; and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Pekka Kuusisto, Kayhan Kalhor, Alison Balsom, Ian Bostridge, and Soumik Datta. He has partnered with The English Concert; Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo and Virginia Symphonies; Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain; The Sixteen, Handel & Haydn Society; and Spoleto and Tanglewood Festivals.
Barclay seeks to collapse the space between arts and advocacy, composing the film A Mother’s Love for the Wild Foundation, creating Tales in Migration to score immigrant’s stories, and funding The Sphinx Organization’s National Alliance for Audition Support. His single Let Nature Sing, made entirely of birdsong with folk singer Sam Lee, debuted at #11 on the UK Pop Charts for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
A noted curator, he piloted the Candlelit Concerts series in the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from its construction in 2014, featuring major collaborations including the Royal Opera House, The Sixteen, BBC Proms and London Jazz Festival, and with guest curators John Williams, Trevor Pinnock, Lauren Laverne, the Brodsky Quartet, and Anoushka Shankar. He is the first Artistic Director of Music Before 1800, taking over from Louise Basbas helming New York City’s oldest period music presenter just before its 50th Anniversary Season.
He founded the label Globe Music, recognised by the BBC and Royal Philharmonic Society, for Shakespeare’s Globe where he produced music for 130 productions and 150 concerts over seven years, composing 12 including Hamlet Globe-to-Globe to every country on earth.
Contributor to the Guardian and Songlines, Bill published Shakespeare, Music, and Performance for Cambridge University Press, and The Jon Lipsky Play Anthology for Smith & Kraus. He has lectured on the Music of the Spheres on three continents as a leading voice on Shakespeare’s music, and his new essay features in Shakespeare’s Music with Oxford University Press.
A lauded actor, Barclay received a Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship, the largest grant for actors in the US. A Boston native and past acting company member at Shakespeare & Company (10 years, Resident Music Director), the Actors Shakespeare Project (10 years, Artistic Associate), and The Mercury Theatre (Colchester, UK). He trained in Bali, The National Theatre Institute and Vassar College. MFA in Playwriting at Boston University.
His newest play with music, The Chevalier, was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and premiered at Tanglewood in 2019. A Finalist for The National Playwright’s Conference, it tours the US and UK to raise money for the Sphinx National Alliance of Audition Support, which aims to address the lack of racial representation in orchestras in North America. Contact us for more information.