Bede Williams is a New Zealand-born trumpeter, conductor, and academic. He is currently the Deputy Director of Music and Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where he leads a team of outreach, administrative, and teaching staff at the Laidlaw Music Centre.
“Bede is a big talent with the Midas touch.” John Wallace
Bede “handled all the challenges [thrown] at him with aplomb and rendered it all so musically.” Bob Malone
“Visionary”, “Incisive”, “Sensitive.” Michael Tumelty, The Herald
Education
Bede’s musical roots are in brass bands. In New Zealand, he became a member of the Hamilton Auxiliary Brass Band at age 9, before later joining the Cambridge Municipal Brass Band. He was taught by Colin Smith and won many national titles and was for a time concurrently principal trumpet of the National Youth Orchestra and principal cornet of the National Youth Brass Band of New Zealand. Before commencing study at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, he spent a year as a member of the New Zealand Army Band. In 2003 he accepted an ABRSM International Scholarship to study trumpet at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he also completed an undergraduate exchange at the California Institute of the Arts. In 2008 he was a member of Pierre Boulez’s Lucerne Festival Academy, and in 2009/10 held an Emergent Leaders’ Fellowship at the RCS, drawing praise from The Herald as an “incisive,” “visionary,” and “sensitive” musician. Having conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, and the Auckland Philharmonia as a student, in 2011 he graduated from the RCS with a Masters in Conducting. Since graduating he has attended international conducting masterclasses with Martyn Brabbins (Orkney), Christopher Seaman (Auckland), Benjamin Zander (London), Jorma Panula (Amsterdam), Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Leonard Grin (Estonia) and Sian Edwards (St Andrews). As a trumpeter, he has performed in masterclasses with Howard Snell, Hakan Hardenberger and Bengt Eklund among many others.
As a soloist, Bede has premiered four new concertos and led many genre-bending projects exploring improvisation through electronics and sound-based art. As a conductor, he has worked in all major genres and particularly enjoys programming music that elevates the status and appreciation of brass music. From 2019-2025, he served as Director of StAMP Brass, an initiative that introduced more than 1,000 young people to brass instruments. His research interrogates performance practice, cross-disciplinary creative processes, and interpretive freedom. In 2023, he became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and in 2024, Chairperson of the Glasgow Barons, a multi-genre music charity that has developed a new model of a professional orchestra.
