Bill Barclay, Artistic
Director

Director, writer, and composer Bill Barclay has created dozens of theatrical concerts with the world’s most prominent ensembles. He is Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and Music Before 1800, NYC’s oldest early music presenter, and was Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe from 2012-2019.

A “personable polymath” (London Times), Barclay’s original works have been described as “witty and incisive” (New York Times), “quietly transfixing” (The New Yorker), and “quite simply exquisite” (The Guardian). Venues include The Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, The Royal Albert Hall, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Barbican, Washington National Cathedral, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and The Southbank Centre. Broadway and West End credits include Farinelli and the King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III all starring Sir Mark Rylance.

Major tours include The Chevalier (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, 8 others); Secret Byrd for The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork (20 cities on tour); Anthony & Cleopatra (LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra and others); and Peer Gynt (Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras). He has been commissioned five times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, appearing across eight seasons.

Other projects include directing the Silkroad Ensemble on tour, Beyond Beethoven 9 for Marin Alsop, A Midsummer Nights Dream for Andris Nelsons, L’Histoire du Soldat for Charles Dutoit, Four Seasons Reimagined for Max Richter and puppeteers Gyre & Gimble, and 1791: Mozart’s Last Year for Gianandrea Noseda and The National Symphony Orchestra.

As a composer, Barclay composed the historic Hamlet Globe-to-Globe which toured to 189 countries, and Call of the Wild that performed in 42 US states. He has composed three times for the British Royal Family, for President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Calais.

His newest work Letters to a Young Poet lately premiered with The Brodsky Quartet at The Aldeburgh Festival and tours in 2025. He regularly appears in major international festivals: Tanglewood, Spoleto, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Lammermuir, Latitude, Death of Classical, Oxford, Teatro a Mil, Canterbury, and many others.

Photograph © Kevin Condon

“A well-established master of sui generis music-theatre events.”
-The Tablet

Barclay has been published on the music of Shakespeare by both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and edited The Jon Lipsky Play Anthology for Smith & Kraus. A contributor to the Guardian and Songlines, he has lectured on the Music of the Spheres on three continents.

A noted curator, he created the Candlelit Concerts series from the launch of London’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2014, partnering with The Royal Opera House and BBC Proms. He founded the label Globe Music, recognised by The Royal Philharmonic Society, for Shakespeare’s Globe where he produced music for 130 productions and 150 concerts over seven years. He currently programs Music Before 1800, “Gotham’s flagship music presenter” (The New Yorker).

His single Let Nature Sing, made of birdsong with singer Sam Lee, debuted at #11 on the UK Pop Charts to support The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Appearances on the podium include King of Ghosts on tour with Soumik Datta and City of London Sinfonia, and conducting the USACH Orchestra on tour in Chile.

He has collaborated with soloists Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, Ian Bostridge, Anoushka Shankar and Alison Balson, and dozens of the world’s most prominent conductors including Dame Jane Glover, Louis Langree, Bramwell Tovey, JoAnn Falletta, Sakari Oramo, and Trevor Pinnock.

A lauded actor, Barclay received a Fox Foundation Fellowship, the largest grant for actors in the US. A Boston native and past acting company member at Shakespeare & Company (11 years), the Actors Shakespeare Project (10 years, Artistic Associate), and The Mercury Theatre (UK), he trained in Bali, The National Theatre Institute and Vassar College. MFA in Playwriting, Boston University.