Professor William Mival

MMus, FHEA, FRCM

Doctoral Supervisor

William Mival is a composer, broadcaster, writer, teacher and Composition professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Royal College of Music, London.

A student of Anthony Milner, Robert Saxton and York Höller, he has written works for, amongst others, Ensemble Gemini, the Belcea String Quartet, The BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Welsh Chamber Orchestra, the virginalist Sophie Yates, the pianist Andrew Ball, the baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and the Choirs of Salisbury Cathedral.

His On the Ringstreet was written for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Land Rover sponsored Sound Discovery Programme in 1996 and first performed by the orchestra in a studio recording conducted by Pascal Rophé. Quartet RBG, was premiered by the Belcea String Quartet at the Sydney Festival in January 2002 and repeated the following week in London at a BBC Lunchtime concert from the Wigmore Hall. Tristan-still, commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was first performed at the Barbican Concert Hall in February 2003 conducted by Donald Runnicles and broadcast live on Radio Three. ‘And Singing Say and Saying Sing’ – The private devotions for the Hours of Prayer of John Cosin received its first performances in Salisbury and London in 2012 by the Choirs of Salisbury Cathedral directed by David Halls. Correntandemente (Runningly – ish) for large ensemble, was first performed by the RCM New Perspectives Ensemble in October 2015 conducted by Timothy Lines.

William Mival’s writings include a survey of the performance history of Stockhausen’s Gruppen for the Cambridge History of Musical Performance (published in 2012). As a broadcaster he has been a very frequent contributor to BBC Radio, particularly Radio Three’s Record Review introducing new releases and in ‘Building a Library’. He has also made appearances on television introducing performances from the BBC Proms and also discussing the concept of musical ‘resonance’ on BBC Television’s The Culture Show.

William is a LAHP (London Arts & Humanities Partnership) doctoral student supervisor, currently supervising the work of Alex Ho.

Faculties / departments: Composition, Research, Academic staff