Ruaraidh Williams is a cellist and composer based in Manchester / Scotland. He is currently studying with Nicholas Trygstad at the Royal Northern College of Music with scholarship and performs regularly as part of his chamber group, Valette Ensemble. This year, he has gotten stuck in with projects at the RNCM including their 50th Anniversary Strings Day, performing in its production of Strauss’ ‘Die Fledermaus’ as well as organising and hosting ‘PROLOGUE’ Valette Ensemble chamber performance playing the music of Caroline Shaw, Shostakovich and RNCM alumni composers. Ruaraidh is generously supported in his studies at the RNCM by the Haworth Trust.
As an emerging talent, Ruaraidh was awarded the Joan Dickson Cello Scholarship from the North East of Scotland Music School (2018-21), as well as the Henry McKenzie Johnston Award (2018) and Robert Lewin Scholarship (2019) from Awards for Young Musicians. In October 2019 he performed at Haddo Arts Festival (introducing Scots Makar Jackie Kay), competed in the final of Grampian Youth Orchestra’s Concerto Competition, and performed a new composition by Shiori Usui – 'The Silent Forest’ – alongside AYM award winners and musicians from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He also performed with Grampian Youth Orchestra from 2017-2020. In 2023 Ruaraidh is very excited to be workshopping several new works for chamber ensembles and solo artists with the intention of recording said works later this year.
In 2021 Ruaraidh performed online in the Inverness Music Festival, winning the Curtis Craig Cup; with the return to live music, he performed alongside alt-pop / folk artist Dawn Coulshed at Eden Court Theatre. Since 2016, Ruaraidh has been performing with the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland; selected as principal cello for the Senior orchestra’s 2019 season (performing alongside Alexey Stadler) and was principal cello for the Symphony orchestra’s 2022 season (performing alongside Jess Gillam and Timothy Ridout). He also went on a quartet tour of Guernsey with the Crwth Quartet.
Through college, he performed new music for electronics and strings collaborating with the RNCM composition department as well as playing in their Composers Showcase. Performing with the Bloomfield Quartet he competed in the Hirsch Prize for Beethoven’s chamber music, was a Nossek Chamber Prize finalist as the Le Maistre Trio and performed with the Manchester Video Games Orchestra.
In 2023 as part of Valette Ensemble Ruaraidh returned to the International Women’s Day ‘EMPOWER’ series for a second year, performed music of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis with mezzo-soprano Midia Kalou and was involved as a member of the Benedetti Foundation for their Bolton sessions.