Bill Barclay is the former director of music at Shakespeare’s Globe and the current artistic director of both Concert Theatre Works and Music Before 1800, New York City’s oldest early music presenter. His Broadway and West End credits include: Farinelli andthe King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Mark Rylance. Barclay's original music has been performed live in 197 countries and forty-two
US states, before President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and three times for the British royal family. Called a “personal polymath” by the London Times, Barclay regularly works as a director, writer, composer, actor, producer, and conductor. He is the creator and director of several of the most important concert events in the last ten years, including The Chevalier (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Harlem Chamber Players, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Chautauqua, Caramoor, and others); Secret Byrd (St Martin-in-the-Fields and international twenty city tour); Peer Gynt (Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra); and Antony & Cleopatra (Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Virginia Symphony Orchestra). Barclay has received commissions on five occasions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A contributor to The Guardian, Barclay has published works on the music of Shakespeare by both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and lectures on Shakespeare and the music of the spheres around the world. He frequently collaborates with early music ensembles and regularly appears in major festivals throughout the world. Barclay has collaborated with soloists such as Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams, and dozens of the world’s most prominent conductors. Recent collaborations include Mozart’s Last Year with the National Symphony Orchestra, Apollo Resurrected with United Strings of Europe and Gandini Juggling, and Beyond Beethoven 9 produced by Carnegie Hall with Marin Alsop and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has created works of concert-theatre in some of the world’s most iconic places: the Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Southbank Centre, Washington National Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, Hampton Court and Buckingham Palace. Barclay has directed the Silkroad Ensemble on tour, conducted City of London Sinfonia on tour, and composed the historic Hamlet, Globe-to-Globe, which toured to every country on earth.
Well-known “Musers” who have spoken at the Tennessee Arts Academy in the past include Broadway composers Charles Strouse (Annie), Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line), Andrew Lippa (The Addams Family) and Henry Krieger (Dreamgirls); concert pianist Lorin Hollander; lyricists Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof), Dean Pitchford (Fame), and Joe DiPietro (Memphis); Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim; costume designer Patricia Zipprodt (My Fair Lady); authors Wilma Dykeman and Will D. Campbell; theatre critic John Simon; conductors Michael Stern, Isaiah Jackson, Luke Frazier, Giancarlo Guerrero, Anton Armstrong, and Robert Bernhardt; author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds (The Dot); educator Graham Down; Emmy and Tony award-winning actress Cherry Jones; Shakespearean directors Adrian Hall and Tina Packer; Hollywood composers Richard Sherman (Mary Poppins) and George S. Clinton (Austin Powers); visual artists Audrey Flack, Derek Fordjour, Dorothy Gillespie, Jon Moody, Beverly McIver, Nikkolas Smith, Charles Brindley, Dolph Smith, Alan Lequire, Harold Gregor, and Sylvia Hyman; Broadway directors Scott Ellis (1776), Jeff Calhoun (Newsies), and Richard Maltby, Jr. (Fosse); opera stars Mignon Dunn, Harolyn Blackwell, and Christine Brewer; New Yorker cartoonist Robert Mankoff; musical book writer Rick Elice (The Cher Show); poet Nikki Giovanni; Tony award-winning playwright Christopher Durang (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike); bandleader and musician Doc Severinsen (The Tonight Show); classical composers Libby Larsen, Jennifer Higdon, and Gabriela Lena Frank; scenic and costume designer Tony Walton; writer, musician, composer, and lyricist David Yazbek; stage combat director David Leong (Carousel); filmmaker Jay Russell (My Dog Skip); three-time Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown (The Bridges of Madison County); Broadway musical theatre stars Joshua Henry (Hamilton), Kate Baldwin (Hello, Dolly!); Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Stephanie J. Block (Wicked) Marin Mazzie (Ragtime), Jason Danieley (The Full Monty), Rebecca Luker, (The Secret Garden), Alton Fitzgerald White (The Lion King), Laura Osnes (Cinderella), and Aaron Lazar (The Light in the Piazza); television writer and producer Marc Cherry (Golden Girls, Desperate Housewives); author, composer, and lyricist Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) and many others.
