Christopher Williams

double-bass & voice

Christopher Williams is a wayfarer on the body-mind continuum. His medium is music.

Born in San Diego in 1981, he completed a B.A. at the University of California with Chaya Czernowin, Bertram Turetzky, Charles Curtis, and others. From 2003-2009 he lived and briefly studied in Barcelona. Since 2009 he has lived in Berlin and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Leiden with Richard Barrett and Marcel Cobussen on the subject of notation for improvisers.

As a contrabassist, Williams has improvised, interpreted, and danced throughout Europe and North America with musicians including Derek Bailey, Justin Bennett, Compagnie Ouie/Dire, Charles Curtis, LaMonte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music, Robin Hayward (in the duo Reidemeister Move), Hans W. Koch, and dancer Martin Sonderkamp; and with composers such as Chris Adler, Benjamin Carson, Charlie Morrow, Yoav Pasovsky, Benjamin Patterson, Ana-Maria Rodriguez, Marc Sabat, James Saunders, and Erik Ulman.

His compositions run the gamut from chamber music to radio art and collaborations with other improvisers. Performers include Maulwerker, ensemble chronophonie, Patrick Crossland, Ferran Fages, Mary Oliver and Rozemarie Heggen, Barbara Held, trigger ensemble für aktuelle musik, NOISE Ensemble, and Sabine Vogel. His work with visual artist Tanja Smit has been shown at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), and his radio work has been broadcast on VPRO Radio 6 (Holland) and Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Williams’ artistic research centers on improvisation, notation, and the feedback between thought, perception, and action in experimental music. He has published articles in Open Space Magazine, The Improvisor, and Critical Studies in Improvisation and presented at major universities and international conferences in North America, Europe, and India. He has received scholarships, grants, and prizes from the University of California, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, the Arts Council of Catalunya, Goethe Institut, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, and the Festival Acanthes.

As a curator, he organized over 70 concerts of contemporary and experimental music in Barcelona between 2003-2009 with Associació Musical l’Embut. He currently co-curates two series in Berlin, Certain Sundays and KONTRAKLANG, and participates in the Berlin Improvisation Research Group. Williams also works for Charles Morrow Productions as a production and sales associate.