Christopher Williams (San Diego, 1981) is a Berlin-based composer, improvisor, contrabassist, and organizer originally from San Diego (California), where he studied at the University of California with Chaya Czernowin, Bertram Turetzky, Charles Curtis, and others. Additional teachers include Richard Barrett, John Rahn, Erik Ulman, and Mark Dresser. Performances with Derek Bailey, LaMonte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music, Hans W. Koch, Tom Djll and Matt Ingalls, Charles Curtis, Maggie Nicols, Justin Bennett, Jack Wright, and Katharina Klement; by Mary Oliver and Rozemarie Heggen, trigger ensemble für aktuelle musik, Barbara Held, NOISE Ensemble, Ferran Fages, ensemble chronophonie, and Sabine Vogel; for composers James Saunders, Benjamin Carson, Benjamin Patterson, Erik Ulman, Marc Sabat and Chris Adler; and around artist Tanja Smit, and dancers Martin Sonderkamp and Justin Morrison.
Recordings on Incus, Steady Beat, and Eclipse; articles in Open Space and The Improvisor; scholarships and prizes from the University of California, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, the Arts Council of Catalunya and the Festival Acanthes composers’ workshop. Work shown at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art and broadcast on VPRO Radio 6 (Holland).
From 2003-9, Williams was a member of Associació Musical l’Embut, a collective dedicated to organizing concerts of contemporary and experimental music in Barcelona. Their activities included over 70 concerts within the series M.I.#, three editions of the annual Festivalet d’Hivern, and numerous collaborations with major Catalan venues and institutions such as Festival Nous Sons, Mercat de les Flors, Arco y Flecha, and the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya.