The Ealing Guitar Society is
grateful to Therese Wassily Saba, the New Editor of Classical Guitar magazine,
who has graciously agreed to interview William Starling about his book. She will explore how he came to write it,
what inspired him to take the approach he chose, and what challenges he faced
in writing the biography of such an eminent musician. William has given talks to a number of guitar
societies and writers’ clubs including a recent event at the Sibelius Academy
in Helsinki. He can be expected to give frank insights
into his work and John’s life and to use photographs, many unpublished, to
illustrate the subject. He will also
talk about the reaction to the book by both the guitar world and John’s wider
audience.
The audience will be welcome
to participate by asking questions and commenting on John and his biography.
This is an unusual and
special event and promises to be an informative and lively evening.
Copies of ‘Strings Attached –
The Life and Music of John Williams’ will be on sale at the event.
William Starling
Starling was not the most obvious
candidate to become John’s choice as his biographer, a role that many have
coveted. Although William has, to use his words, ‘dabbled with guitar for
nearly fifty years’, he makes no claim to be a musician nor did particularly he
consider himself to be a writer - his career was as an engineer and designer in
the automotive industry and he had written nothing similar before. In fact,
although had penned works on guitar design and the philosophy of failure, his
longest work to date had been his PhD thesis in Cybernetics! Having been a friend of John Williams for
some time, he convinced the guitarist that a biography was overdue and, having
accepted that contention, Williams put his trust in his friend to write it. Several
years of extensive research ensued and numerous interviews were conducted
including some with important contributors in Australia, the country of John’s
birth.
William Starling says that
his task was made easier by the great esteem in which his subject is held;
interviews that he thought would be extremely difficult to secure were granted
willingly by friends, relatives and musical colleagues of John Williams.
The book was written for all
who admire or might be interested in John’s life and some within the classical
guitar world have taken exception to this approach. Starling has no regrets –
“This is the story of the making of an intelligent, complex, compassionate and
enormously accomplished man who happens to be one of the finest and most
celebrated musicians of his generation’.
