William Goodchild | Composer

William composes and produces music for film, television and concert performance. He has scored over 100 films for the major broadcasters including Netflix, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, PBS, National Geographic International, Discovery International and YouTube Originals.

 

In 2021 William won Best Composer at the Royal Television Society West of England Awards for his score to IFA Media’s Tibet: Roof of the World. In the same year with the same score, he was a Finalist in the Music+Sound Awards’ Best Original Composition in Film and TV Titles category. In 2017 William won Best Score at the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival for his score to Living Spirit Pictures’ Seeing Him. In 2016, his score to Jago - A Life Underwater was nominated for the Music Award at the prestigious international Wildscreen Festival. In 2022, William was a Finalist in the Original Music Score category at the Jackson Wild Media Awards for his score to Wild Space Productions Ltd (Netflix) / Freeborne Media Ltd’s Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale. In 2023, this score was also nominated for the Composer Award at the Royal Television Society West of England Awards.

 

Scores recently composed by William include 4-part Netflix series, Chimp Empire, from Academy Award-winning Director James Reed; feature documentary The Letter: A Message For Our Earth (YouTube Originals/ PBS); Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale narrated by Regé-Jean Page (Netflix Original); and H2O - the Molecule that Made Us (PBS).

 

There are three original motion picture soundtracks composed by William currently available to stream: Chimp Empire, The Letter: A Message for our Earth, and Africa's Fishing Leopards.

 

On stage and in the recording studio, William has collaborated with a wide variety of international soloists including guitarist John Williams and singer Tom Jones. William’s passion for working across styles led to a live and recorded collaboration with Mercury Prize-Winner, Roni Size & Reprazent. Their album, Live at Colston Hall, was released in November 2015. Also at the Colston Hall, with Sir David Attenborough presenting, William orchestrated and conducted the BBC’s Nature’s Great Events Live to a sell-out audience. The BBC’s Wild China series, orchestrated and conducted by William, won an Emmy for sound and music.

 

Many recordings conducted by William are available to buy on Sony Classical, Universal Classical and Jazz, and CBS Records. As conductor, he has worked regularly with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Bristol Ensemble. In 2021 he conducted City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and soloist Laurence Perkins (bassoon) for a Hyperion Records double album release entitled, Voyage of a Sea-god. In 2022, he has conducted BBC National Orchestra of Wales in BBC filmscore recordings for Will Gregory.

 

Alongside his busy freelance schedule as composer, William has, for fifteen years, nurtured and encouraged talented young film composers through his work as a part-time visiting Senior Associate Teacher on the MA Composition of Music for Film and Television course at the University of Bristol.

 

William has a degree in Music from the University of East Anglia and is a Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama having been a Junior Exhibitioner in violin and piano at the Royal College of Music and a Music Scholar at St. Paul’s School.  He studied composition with Peter Aston and Denis Smalley, conducting with Richard Hickox, John Lubbock and George Hurst, and piano with Sidney Harrison and John York.  His passion for film composition began when working as a musical assistant to British composer Edward Williams preparing scores and conducting sessions on television projects for Edward.

 

William is a member of The Ivors Academy and PRS for Music.  

 

Specialities: composing music to picture, high-end music production, orchestration, conducting and piano performance