Departmental homepageTim Watts is a composer and pianist with interests in interdisciplinarity and improvisation. He studied composition with Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway at Cambridge before training in Piano Accompaniment at the the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. In addition to his role at St John's, he is a professor at the Royal College of Music, London. He has held residencies at Bedford School, King's Lynn Festival and the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, and he is currently composer-in-residence with Cambridge University Schola Cantorum. His opera Kepler's Trial, premiered at St John's in 2016 and produced at London's Victoria & Albert Museum the following year, was the fruit of an ambitious collaboration with Professor Ulinka Rublack (also a Fellow at St John's). His song cycle The Third Sea was launched at King's Place in 2023, performed by the composer and a team of his former Johnian students, Hugh Cutting, Laura Van Der Heijden and Leo Appel, alongside Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (Peterhouse), with whom he continues to work closely.
Watts teaches composition and various elements of the Tonal Skills papers in all three years of the Music Tripos.
His output encompasses stage, concert, liturgical and educational music. He is interested in text-music relationships, questions of voice and the intersection of notation and improvisation.
