MEET LENNY
A MULTIFACETED MUSICIAN
Lenny Williams is a six-time Emmy Award-winning television and documentary composer.
In his creative, story-driven approach to the craft of scoring, Lenny Williams has composed original music for over a thousand documentary films, winning national Emmy Awards in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2015 in the category Outstanding Achievement in a Craft: Music and Sound. He has been nominated for the award 12 times. For over three decades, he has worked extensively as a composer with National Geographic Television and Film, the Discovery Channel, WNET, WGBH, WETA, CNN, PBS, A&E, Animal Planet, Netflix, Smithsonian Channel, and The History Channel. Hundreds of network and cable TV shows have also included his music on their soundtracks.
In addition to his six Emmy Awards and 12 Emmy Nominations for musical composition, Lenny has scored the music for many other Emmy-winning shows, won five BMI awards, and performed on two Grammy award-winning recordings. He has also won a Teton award at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (2007) for Best Original Musical Score and a Panda Award for Best Music in 2008 from Wildscreen.
A classically trained musician who is as at home in the pit orchestra of the Kennedy Center as he is in a jazz club, Lenny graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1983 with a BM degree in music composition. The early years of his music career found him performing gigs in and around Washington, D.C., as a jazz pianist. He was a sought-after solo performer and accompanist for many of D.C.’s established instrumentalists and vocalists. In 1988 he met singer Eva Cassidy and became her primary pianist, playing and recording with her until her untimely death in 1996. Her recordings have sold over 10 million copies worldwide and have received numerous Gold and Platinum record sales awards in the U.S. and internationally. In 1998 he co-produced, arranged, and played piano on the album “Timeless’ with D.C. legend Chuck Brown.
Beginning in 1993, he was hired by the political satire group The Capitol Steps as a full-time pianist, performing over 1500 shows and traveling extensively with them across the United States until 2020.
While in Washington, he was a regular performer at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, playing with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra and for productions of national touring musicals and musical acts. He has performed with Smokey Robinson, Anita Baker, Chuck Brown, Stephanie Mills, and Gloria Estefan. In 1999 he performed at the White House for The Concert of the Century for VH1.
In 2006 he co-produced the CD ‘My Life’ for vocalist Grace Griffith, which was awarded ‘Album of the Year’ by the Washington D.C. Area Music Association. In 2015 he co-produced recordings featuring Susan Boyle for Simon Cowell on the SYCO record label, a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment.
Lenny Williams currently resides in Norwell, Massachusetts, with his wife, pianist and educator Dona Maher. He continues to create original musical compositions for TV and Film in his home studio while also maintaining a full recording studio with state-of-the-art digital capabilities in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Kensington, Maryland, with his business partner Chris Biondo. Lenny also remains an active live performer, recording artist, and mentor for young composers.