Emma Williams

Netherlands-based Australian violinist, Emma Williams, has a passion for the historically informed performance of music and holds degrees in both modern and historical violin performance from Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, respectively.

Emma regularly performs with leading period instrument groups in Europe and Australia, including Arcangelo, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Anima Eterna Brugge, Pygmalion, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, Australian Haydn Ensemble, and Pinchgut Opera. Having also grown up singing in Gondwana Voices and The Choir of Trinity College, University of Melbourne, and studying with vocal pedagogues around the world, Emma is now combining her passions in an artistic research PhD at Leiden University. Through inter-disciplinary research, Emma is combining an embodied reading of historical acting, vocal, and violin methods with current psychological and somatic methods to create a methodology for exploring how one might embody the rhetorical, declamatory, vocal nature of violinists’ performance practices in early-19^th-century Vienna and Paris. Emma is also dedicated to finding new and exciting ways to connect with audiences. In 2018 she co-founded MusicBox, a collective that breaks down barriers surrounding classical music, which is both a concert series in The Hague and a podcast called Outside the MusicBox.