Bob & Julie Clampett Chair, in memory of Carolyn Clampett
Justin Williams holds the position of Assistant Principal Viola with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and was the founding violist of the Tinalley String Quartet (TSQ). He has performed as Principal Viola with the Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland symphony orchestras, Australian World Orchestra, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra (AOBO), Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Australia ProArte, and as ripieno viola with Australian Chamber Orchestra.
As a member of Tinalley String Quartet, Justin shared in the experience of winning the Ninth Banff International String Quartet Competition and the 2005 Australian Chamber Music Competition. With TSQ he has toured extensively throughout Australia, Europe and North America performing in major concert halls such as Vienna’s Musikverein and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and has released several recordings with Move Records, Decca Australia and ABC Classic.
Originally from Albury, New South Wales, Justin Williams completed a master's degree in performance at the University of Melbourne. He has also studied with members of the St Lawrence Quartet, Tokyo Quartet, Emerson Quartet, Schoenberg Quartet, Keller Quartet and the Takács Quartet, as well as William Hennessy, Caroline Henbest and Brett Dean.
His performances have been broadcast in Australia on ABC Classic FM, 3MBS (Melbourne) and 5MBS (Adelaide), and internationally on CBC Canada, SRW2 and HR2 Kultur (Germany), Radio France and Public National Radio, The Netherlands.
As a composer, Justin released his Movement for String Quartet in 2020, which has since been performed throughout Australia and in Europe by the Australian String Quartet, and in Japan by Australia’s award winning Affinity Quartet. In 2022, Justin was the recipient of a Sydney International Piano Competition Composing the Future juror’s prize for his ‘Three Intermezzi’ for solo piano. In 2023, his set of songs Three Pieces for String Quartet and Voice: Love – Despair – Hope, was commissioned and premiered at Blackheath Chamber Music Festival, and his First Symphony was jointly commissioned by Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra and premiered by QSO under the direction of Maestro Umberto Clerici as part of the Brisbane Festival. His Symphony has since been performed by Sydney Youth Orchestra and will be performed by Sydney Symphony Orchestra in August 2026. In 2024, Justin added to his oeuvre a duo for violin and cello (Theme and Variations), and a piece for solo piano, A Storm, commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music as part of ANAM Set 2024.
In 2025, Justin completed a work for wind quintet which was performed by musicians of the Sydney Symphony in the Orchestra’s Cocktail Hour chamber music series at the Sydney Opera House, and he was commissioned by Hymie and Darina Factor to write a string quartet, which he is currently working on. Justin has also been commissioned by SSO and Principal Cor Anglais, Alexandre Oguey, to write a work for cor anglais, violin, viola, cello and double bass, which is to be premiered in 2027.