Bekki Williams

Born in Nottingham in 1972, Bekki performed her first solo concert at the tender age of 8. She won a scholarship to a national music school at the age of 11, and has played in several regional orchestras.She has composed music for radio, films and video games, and has worked as a session musician (synthesisers, piano, flute, sax and backing vocals) in several recording studios as well as running a studio of her own. As far as inspiration goes, Bekki admires in particular the compositional skills of several film and game soundtrack composers, such as Danny Elfman, Graham Revelle, Brad Fiedel, Jerry Goldsmith, Randy Edelman, and Jeremy Soule. Her favourite composer of all time though is Nathan McCree, the musical genius behind many of the 'Tomb Raider' games. Classically trained for many years on the flute from the age of 10, and eventually studying the saxophone and piano, Bekki is best known for her warm, emotive, symphonic synthesiser arrangements and trademark melodies. This follows her signing to the AD Music label in 1995, and the release of her debut album Elysian Fields in 1996. Bekki's one burning ambition is to compose full-time for film and television. This is something that she has longed to do since being commissioned by BBC Radio Derby’s Ashley Franklin to compose the score for the Valentino silent classic The Son of the Sheikh in 1997. This score was intended to be played live at an exclusive screening of the movie and the deadline was tight - Bekki had only 6 weeks in which to compose the entire soundtrack. Due to horrendous technical problems including a complete equipment crash only minutes before she was due to perform, Bekki was unable to play at the screening. However, the time she had spent composing the music was not wasted, as her work formed the foundations for her second album, Shadow of the Wind. This album reflects the Eastern elements of the film in many places, not least on tracks such as 'Mistral' and 'Azmara'. Further to the release of Shadow of the Wind, Bekki all but disappeared from the composing scene for several years due to a series of traumatic personal circumstances, which included illness, injury and the breakdown of her marriage amongst other things. Her music remained popular during this time however, and was featured on several compilation albums. Following the abovementioned hiatus, 2005 saw a refreshed and much happier Bekki returning to the studio, with the release of her third and most critically acclaimed album to date, Innersense. A highly personal project which was never meant to see the light of day, Innersense contains some of her most heartfelt, poignant and emotive work, as well as showcasing her skills as a flautist for the first time on one of her solo releases. 2006 was a busy year for Bekki. With the composition of her long-overdue fourth solo album Edge of Human in full flow, she also undertook film score work for the Tomb Raider fan film Tears of the Dragon and continued to work on a collection of soundtracks especially written for game designers entitled Entombed. 2007 saw the release of Edge of Human to tremendous critical acclaim, and 2008 saw Bekki nearing completion of her first first library music album, Myriad, and starting work on her next solo projects, the Inferno Trilogy and Future Memories.