William Vann is establishing himself at the forefront of the current generation of young British accompanists. He was born and brought up in Bedford before reading law and taking up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard. He then studied as a pianist at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone, graduating with distinction; in 2008 he won the Gerald Moore award for young accompanists and in October 2010 won the Great Elm Awards Accompanist Prize. He is also a past winner of the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship, is supported by the Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust and held the Hodgson Fellowship in piano accompaniment at the RAM.

Recent performances have included several appearances at Wigmore Hall including the Samling Foundation"s fifteenth anniversary with Sir Thomas Allen, Malcolm Martineau, Jennifer France, Kitty Whately and Njabulo Madlala, concerts at the Aldeburgh Festival, the Sage, Gateshead, St John"s, Smith Square, Winterreise at The Forge, Camden and in Lagos, Nigeria and Lund, Sweden. He has given guest recitals for the Lennox Berkeley, Finzi and Gurney Societies, performed the music of Judith Weir at the RAM in the presence of the composer and toured a programme Dvorak and Brahms" chamber music with the Nephele Ensemble at St David"s, Cardiff and in the Rhyl and Carlisle festivals. Forthcoming appearances include four concerts in the 2012 London English Song Festival, including a recital with James Gilchrist, a recital in the Oxford Lieder Festival, a guest recital for the John Ireland Society to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the composer"s death and several concerts across the country with mezzo-soprano Katie Bray.

In addition to his performances of standard song repertoire, he has also either commissioned or given the first performance of new English songs and song cycles by several English composers, including Christian Alexander, Joseph Atkins, Martin Eastwood, Johnny Herford, David Nield and Graham Ross (the latter two at Wigmore Hall).

He is a Samling Scholar, a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, a Young Songmaker and a Britten-Pears Young Artist. He also works as a conductor and repetiteur and was the assistant conductor for Bury Court Opera"s 2011 and 2012 productions of Rigoletto and La Cenerentola in association with Southbank Sinfonia. He is a coach on the Oxenfoord Summer School and in May will take up the position of Director of Music at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.