Patrick Williams

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This article is about the American composer. For the Irish-American politician, see John Patrick Williams. For the American football player, see Pat Williams (NFL).

Patrick Williams (born April 23, 1939) is an American composer who specializes in writing scores for movies and television shows. Williams is currently the artistic director of the Henry Mancini Institute. He has won four Emmys, two Grammys and an Oscar nomination for his score for Breaking Away. Williams has scored more than 150 films in all, and his music has been featured on television shows such as Columbo and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Williams was raised in Missouri and Connecticut and received a bachelor's degree in history from Duke University in 1961.

Mr. Williams has also worked as arranger and conductor for a number of recording artists. He has worked with Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme on various projects,incuding their 1968 Broadway production,"Golden Rainbow". Other performers include Barbra Streisand,Jack Jones,Dionne Warwick,Barry Manilow,Amy Grant and Vince Gill. Mr. Williams was also involved in Frank Sinatra's last recording project,which brought about two albums of duets with pop stars like Liza Minelli,Carly Simon,Tony Bennett,Aretha Franklin and Luther Vandross. Patrick is listed as music director and conductor,as well as furnishing new arrangements based on some of the original charts from earlier Sinatra recordings. In 1997,Patrick arranged and conducted a big band tribute album to Frank,"Sinatraland",featuring many well-known instrumentalists like Phil Woods,Tom Scott and David Sanborn.
Patrick Williams also has worked on projects under his own name for Verve,Capitol and Columbia. The 1973 Capitol album,"Threshold",is considered one of the finest big band recordings of modern times, and gave lots of solo space for Tom Scott in an array of woodwind instruments and trumpeter Marvin Stamm. Patrick's work with Tom Scott continued into the 1980s,when Patrick started the Soundwings label. Notable recordings for the short-lived label included trombonist Bill Watrous and an orchestral/spoken word album based on Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver Travels". "Gulliver" featured the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of England and narration by famed British actor,Sir John Gielgud.
Another noteworthy piece of music by Patrick Williams is "An American Concerto",recorded in 1979 and released on Columbia Records. A fusion of jazz and European classical music,it centered on a jazz quartet of Phil Woods on alto sax,Dave Grusin,keyboards,Grady Tate,drums and Chuck Domanico,bass,surrounded by the London Synphony Orchestra. "An American Concerto" was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. ==External links==