A multiple-prize winning and critically acclaimed conductor and accompanist, equally at home on the podium and at the piano, William Vann is the founder and Artistic Director of the London English Song Festival. He is a passionate advocate for neglected works of British music and proud to have spearheaded the Festival’s project to revive and record Hubert Parry’s oratorio Judith, the performance of which, at the Royal Festival Hall, was described by Seen and Heard International as ‘an unalloyed triumph for William Vann... he had complete command of the score and evident belief in the music’. Born in Bedford, he was a Chorister at King’s College, Cambridge and a Music Scholar at Bedford School. He subsequently read law and took up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard; at the Royal Academy of Music he studied piano accompaniment with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone. He has been awarded many prizes for his piano accompaniment, including the Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo (with Johnny Herford) at the Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Gerald Moore Award, and Accompanists’ Award of the Royal Over-Seas League.

William Vann has collaborated throughout the world and on disc with a vast array of singers and instrumentalists, among them Sir Thomas Allen CBE, Mary Bevan, Katie Bray, David Butt Philip, Allan Clayton, Dame Sarah Connolly, Neal Davies, Sarah Fox, James Gilchrist, Thomas Gould, Johnny Herford, Guy Johnston, Jennifer Johnston, Jack Liebeck, Njabulo Madlala, Aoife Miskelly, Ann Murray DBE, Matthew Rose, Brindley Sherratt, Nicky Spence, Toby Spence, Andrew Staples, Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams, the Navarra Quartet, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Britten Sinfonia, and London Mozart Players. He is the Director of Music at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, an Associate of the RAM, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a Trustee of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, a Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Music Society, Artistic Director of Bedford Music Club, Musical Director of Dulwich Choral Society, and a regular conductor and vocal coach at the Dartington and Oxenfoord International Summer schools.