Visual Visionary Willie Williams Joins Projection Master Classes Faculty

Willie Williams, ranked as one of the "Top 25 Visionaries in Entertainment" by Wired magazine, will participate in Live Design's Broadway Projection Master Classes on Friday, May 18, 2007. His presentation, LED and Me, will reflect his work using light and visual media in creating installations and performance environments. His combination of hi-tech media and lo-tech eccentricity first received acclaim through his work since 1982 with U2, particularly their Zoo TV, PopMart, and Elevation tours. Williams' work with R.E.M., David Bowie, and George Michael has also been highly regarded as being both conceptually and technologically groundbreaking.

Williams recently created an outdoor lighting installation at London’s South Bank Centre. Previous public works include a lighting installation within Canterbury Cathedral for Easter 2004, the creation of SkyChurch, a multimedia performance space at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, and a permanent exhibit at Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Forthcoming work includes the installation Lumia Domestica at the Turnpike Gallery in Lancashire from July 2007.

Williams has designed for the legendary Montréal based dance company La La La Human Steps and for the Kronos Quartet production, Sun Rings. This is an evening length performance in collaboration with NASA, comprising string quartet with video accompaniment and audio material from space collected by the Voyager space stations. In October 2006 he lit the Dublin production of Hal Wilner's Came So Far For Beauty, the Leonard Cohen tribute performance featured in the recent documentary film, I'm Your Man.

Theatre projects include lighting and video scenery for the current Little Britain Live tour, and also Pam Ann at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London. He designed the lighting and video content for the musical We Will Rock You playing at theatres in six countries worldwide and also for Barbarella at the Raimund Theatre, Vienna.

Time magazine profiled Williams' work in September 2006 and New York’s Metropolitan Home magazine featured him in their “Design 100” issue, May 2006. He has been honored by his peers several times, most recently when the George Michael stage was included in the 'Best of the Year' in Creative Review annual in Spring 2007. He was awarded 'Lighting Designer of the Year' at the Total Production International Awards 2006 in London. He received two nominations at the 2004 "Green Room" theatre awards in Melbourne, Australia. Total Production International also awarded him Best Lighting Designer at their 2003 awards and Live! magazine named him Designer of the Year for 2002. In 2001 he received an "EDDY" award in New York for excellence in entertainment design, and LDI awarded him as "Designer of the Year" in 1992, as did Performance Magazine in both 1992 and 1987.

For complete information about the Live Design Master Classes in Lighitng, Sound, and Projection: www.livedesignonline.com/broadwaymasterclasses